West Ham do not believe the Marko Arnautovic Chinese transfer drama is over!
Despite the deal with Guangzhou Evergrande being thought to have collapsed, the Irons are still in a state of readiness believing that the second placed club in the Chinese Super League will be back.
They also believe that nothing is set to happen this week but that an improved offer of closer to €50 million could arrive in over the last few days of the transfer window.
The heat is off for the time being as with the FA Cup clash against AFC Wimbledon coming up this weekend it’s likely that rising star Xande Silva will get a chance.
And although the Chinese transfer window doesn’t close until the end of February the Hammers fully expect Evergrande to test their resolve in the last few days of the domestic window.
ClaretandHugh has established that various talks between Arnie and manager Manuel Pellegrini have taken place and that the boss left the player out of last Saturday’s game at Bournemouth after the pair agreed the striker was not in the right frame of mind.
We were told by a top Hammers source by e-mail: “It’s been suggested Arnie refused to travel but that’s not the case – he and the manager agreed he was not in the right frame of mind.
“Beyond that, we don’t believe the transfer situation is over and expect Evergrande to come back closer to the end of our window.”
Ffs if that’s the case we won’t have enough time to get a replacement so it’s not rocket science tell them to buy now or there is no sale at all ..we hold all the cards so I really don’t understand why we won’t tell them were to go …they can not buy at the end of the window as it’s to late to get a replacement….Jesus
Shouldn’t that quote from the source have ended with something like ‘But it has been made clear that we will not sell near to the end of Jan since there will no time to find a satisfactory replacement. This has also been explained to the player’. In fact it is probably already too late, unless something has been going on behind the scenes. I have no problem with us selling the guy (for a sensible amount) but to do it without getting another striker in when we have the basis for a decent season would suggest a lack of ambition.
No cos I don’t make up quotes:)
The story goes that the owners wont be bullied into selling Arnoutavic without a replacement. This means to me that we have to get a replacement in first before we can sell Arnie. Then the other story goes that we have no money to do that, and that Arnie needs to be sold first in order to get the money to buy a replacement. These are both conflicting stories. So I would love to know what the truth of it is.
Also I would have thought that the modern way of buying a replacement would be through delayed payments, in instalments, like a buy now pay later kind of deal. Or a business loan of some kind like a bridging loan or shareholder loan until the Arnie money comes in. I’m sure there are ways and means. I’m thinking something might still be sorted out by the end of the transfer window.
They don’t need to worry about the end of the window they have until 28th Feb so it matters little to them if it is the end of our window or theirs, we haven’t got any players committed to sign for us in the striker position, Gomez has a release clause it should be triggered, whether we buy him now or in the Summer what does it matter the price is the same, we don’t have to sell Arnie but we should buy the replacements for him and Carroll while we can.
Sorry Hugh- I was not suggesting you do, or should, make up quotes. I was suggesting that the additional comments should be coming from the source, who has presumably got them from somewhere inside the club. I have just had an uneasy feeling for several weeks that with a good number of points by the start of Jan the owners are again going to take a big risk by leaving us short in a key area for the last 4 months of the season.
There’s a story on the site explaining the hunt for one 64 the main ones not being available til summer, one or two others not fancied by the manager who, in reality, isgetting what he asks for. In fairness the Arnie situation is an engineered situation and thus a tough one to solve.
Yes there are always the rumours. Some of these probably have a little bit behind them. Some of the ‘player X has been linked with Club Y’ stories are pure fiction e.g. AC to Spurs. I don’t give them much more than a glance until they start to appear regularly from different sources, & not many of the current ones seem to be in that category. Also the Daves apparently share the common view that January is a bad time to do your buying. My preference now would be to keep Arnie until the summer (providing he can get over the disappointment of having to make do on his current wage for a few more months & buckles down, which I think he might).