Hammers pay high Jenks price

West Ham will continue to pay Carl Jenkinson and Arsenal around £80k a week until June despite the player being ruled out of action following a cruciate knee injury.

The Arsenal player is on his way back to the Emirates and is set for surgery which will see him out for the season but the Hammers will be forced to continue picking up the tab.

We understand from Hammers sources the loan fee, wages and appearance bonuses – not that there will be any of those now – total around £80k a week and there is no escape clauses in the contract based on injury considerations.

Our source said: It’s a lose/lose situation all the way. Insurance is not available either because in this business injures are considered an occupational hazard.

“We are left to pay his wages, cash to Arsenal, appearance fees and more to agents. There’s absolutely nothing that can be done – we have to swallow it.

Meanwhile Jack Sullivan has taken a hammering on a leading Arsenal website http:// www.arsenalnewsservice.com which criticises the way the news was broken on the teenager’s Twitter feed and say in part: “… the release of this information should have been handled properly by the West Ham management team.

That means they should have coordinated the release of the information with Arsenal, so left hand knew what right hand was doing. Yet that’s a million miles away from what actually happened.

I personally don’t know what went on in the Sullivan residence in Essex last night. But somehow, Jack got wind of the extent of Jenkinson’s injury. And he felt compelled to tell the world.

I can’t recall the last time a teenager was given sensitive information of this nature and allowed to broadcast it.

David Sullivan needs to take his son to one side and give him a damn good ticking off – and tell him, in no uncertain way, not to do this kind of thing again.”