So in the end it was all about his gratitude that West Ham had pointed his career in the right direction and that although he was tempted by the Chinese offer he decided against the move.
Now that’s SOUNDS great but I’m not sure I’m ready to swallow that hook line and sinker after watching him wave farewell to the crowd, choose not to turn out against Bournemouth and stay entirely schtuum until it was clear the move was finally dead.
In the meantime the Hammers stuck firmly to their position that Mr Arnautovic would be going nowhere for less than €50 million.
There were to be no repeats of the Dimitri Payet situation – there was to be no selling at anything less than the market value they had on the Austrian and they were unflinching on their position.
My understanding is the Hammers received a second bid but that it was around €10 million short of the required figure and as a result Marko Arnautovic tonight remains a Hammers player. There can be little doubt either that Manuel Pellegrini will have had much to do with the decision.
As a result West Ham tonight look like a big club because this is how big clubs behave; you hold on to your best players at all costs.
It’s understandable that Arnie wants to be seen in the best possible light and none of us should have an issue with that – most of us adopt similar attitudes.
The acid test of his loyalty – and for now let’s be generous and accept that it may be genuine – will come in the summer should another bid for him arrive.
In the meantime it’s happy days and I hope he turns out next Tuesday night at Wolves.
COYI
He has only said he’s staying till the end of this season hasn’t he? I’m sure the owners are compensating him for his troubles. I think maybe they should have let him go to China for 40 million. However it was difficult to get a replacement in in this window. What they can do now and I’m sure they are doing already is to line up a striker or two on a pre contract agreement, so if Arnie goes in the summer for 50m we have an adequate replacement in the summer. We need new strikers anyway seeing as Carroll Hernandez and Perez probably all past their best before date.
Onwards and upwards! Let’s be positive
I have never understood why players are booked for taking off their shirts after scoring. So you can get away with a warning for a potentially career ending tackle but dare not expose even an under vest. Anyway if we accept that I would like to propose the following: any player who kisses the badge after scoring gets a written notice of warning – if the player then leaves at or before the end of the season they get a three match ban for every kiss (i.e. for every written warning)
“choose not to turn out”.I read an article on here saying this was the manager’s decision; which is it?
Keep him on the bench for the rest of the season, and only use if we are in dire straights, he wants out no matter what he says about the club now. And can we all stop calling the Sulky Austrian ‘Arnie’ which implies he’s one of us, when obviously he doesn’t want to be
Keep him on the bench and watch his value drop, waste a bench place and waste 100 grand a week on a player we will get no return from. Just who are we punishing here?