WITH a burgeoning list of players deemed surplus to requirements, Head of recruitment Nils Koppen has his work cut out this summer.
West Ham United will have to take some pretty big losses to move on those players who Nuno has designated ‘unwanted’ – but there must be question marks over the Hammers’ ability to find buyers.
West Ham’s headstrong manager has shown little willingness to reconsider decisions made for players who are excluded from the match day squad – James Ward Prowse being the case in point – but the Hammers do seem to be running the risk of having many other players sat ‘high and dry’ without prospects of playing for the club and without buyers willing to take on their huge salaries.
Ward Prowse will do be desperate for a move away from West Ham, his career in tatters- unlike his bank balance
Some would suggest (and have commented in the C and H forum) it is Nuno’s failing – he does seem to ostracise those who he falls out with rather than manage them back into squad integration: There seems a real risk of a West Ham ‘bomb squad’ developing.
Millions of pounds worth of unwanted players, effectively paid to stay away from Nuno’s first team in a carbon copy of Chelsea’s situation which saw several senior players training separately and kept at arms length from the main squad. Hardly good for morale or financial propriety.
Realistically, though, it is all well and good earmarking players for sale but you have to wonder who will pay the huge wages of players like Alphonse Areola, James Ward Prowse and Niclas Fullkrug. Even with their 50% relegation clauses the trio are all on big money for thirty something players.
Maxi Cornet escapes this group solely thanks to reports that West Ham may be about to pay him off: None apparently appear to have a future under Nuno and with Jean Clair Todibo similarly classified as ‘unwanted’, there is a core who risk being left high and dry without prospects of playing again in the near future unless they swallow their pride and drop their wage requirements to get transfers at any cost to restart their careers.
If only WHU could salvage the gold from the ship, that could put the club in the financial position we all want and save something from the wreck. I mean with Nuno’s approval try to get Todibo and Wan Bisaka back in the squad I can see value in those players because they can play and if they did perform they would increase in value. Possibly the best of both. There may be other players that the club could do something with but of course it is totally the Managers choice. I just hate seeing our Club get so little from so much money spent. Bring on the New West Ham.
You comments are a little naive Martin. No manager is going to manage players back into the squad when their attitude and petulance are what caused issues to start with. If a player like Todibo openly declares that he will never play for the manager again just because he has been substituted when he didn’t think he should be, that’s definitely the players issue, not the managers.
Todibo fell out with the 2 previous managers and with that type of attitude he could probably fall out with himself when alone in a dark room and still claim it wasn’t his fault.
And we all know why JWP isn’t playing for “Baldy,” – Ooops, I meant Nuno!
Realistically, the players you seem to be mentioning were all other managers buys, and some managers have their own preferences in the type of player they like. Areola may not be his first choice, but we have 2 decent keepers with different attributes and levels of experience. They will push each other as they compete for the number 1 jersey, and that’s not a bad situation to be in.
Halfkrug never got started, missed pre season, was slow, over weight and then got injured. He was a bad last minute replacement for Duran. Then his attitude changed and he had a good pre season and looked fit. But again he started trying to write cheque’s his body couldn’t cash – and got injured again. Then his attitude decided he wanted out!
There is no Bomb Squad, just bad decisions being made by a board who ran the club in such an awful and unprofessional way. They ran out of ideas and didn’t do anything to attempt to change the direction the club was going in. To already start the negativity because of a lack of patience and gossip coming from the club, especially when the board situation came out of the blue (even though it what we have all been after for a long time) and we were lucky enough to benefit from it…..maybe just hang fire on your judgement.
The reality is the new board are doing things discreetly and properly, with not many leaked rumours for the so called ITK’s to gossip about. There is very little information leaking out like it used to from David Sullivan, Jack Sullivan, Sean Wetwipe, various agents and others. Which means you guys have very little info to gossip about and have had to resort to reading and reporting gossip from other websites which is speculative and inaccurate. If I’m honest I prefer it this way. I want to hear from the club when they have signed someone, or want to tell us something specific. I don’t want to hear what so and so heard while he was talking to his mate at the training ground, like the 300 possible players we have looked at over the last 2 months. I’m happy to wait for genuine accurate information rather than reading the endless pages of click bait and gossip that comes out day after day. The fact that the new board are taking their time and doing things discreetly and properly is a breath of fresh air for our club! Sorry if it doesn’t help you guys, but at least we know our club is finally being run in a professional way and things are being done properly!
COYI