Nothing says “West Ham’s botched transfer strategy” quite like the signing of Mads Hermansen.
The Danish goalkeeper was chased all summer by the club, with West Ham eventually paying £15 million — a club record for a keeper — to prise him away from Leicester City.
Yet, after a handful of calamitous, Roberto-style performances behind an already fragile defence, the Hammers have reportedly decided to cut their losses and move him on.
Now, to be clear — it’s not the decision to offload him that’s the issue. After all, Nuno Espirito Santo, a former goalkeeper himself, knows a thing or two about judging players in that position. The real problem lies in how Hermansen was signed in the first place.
A top transfer source told Claret & Hugh this morning, “It was a bonkers move and will cost millions. West Ham had three different people suggesting 4 different keepers. No other clubs wanted Hermansen”
West Ham are ready to offload Mads Hermansen in January
A Symptom of a Broken System
The move was pushed through by Graham Potter, who identified Hermansen as his preferred choice. There’s nothing wrong with backing a manager, but this transfer was yet another example of too many voices pulling in different directions — and why West Ham so desperately need a proper Director of Football with a long-term vision.
It was telling that Potter himself quickly dropped Hermansen after a string of mistakes, but in truth, he shouldn’t have been in charge of recruitment decisions to begin with. He’d never previously been responsible for signings, having only ever operated as a head coach at his former clubs.
What a Waste of Money
At the time, a very senior London Stadium source told C&H, “We’ve just wasted £15m”. Probably not the supportive words Hermansen needed to hear after being dropped from the team.
Now, West Ham head into another transfer window relying on Nuno Espirito Santo and his agent Jorge Mendes for guidance — a worrying sign given that the club still has no official recruitment head.
Until West Ham modernise and implement a professional, joined-up transfer structure like every other Premier League club, we’ll continue to see the same avoidable mistakes repeated — and the Hermansen saga will stand as yet another cautionary tale of muddled thinking in East London
Not just the “Hermansen Saga”, Gonzo. The same thing has happened with any number of West Ham’s incoming transfers. There must be at least a dozen of them in the last 5 or so years. So many, in fact, that I genuinely struggle to remember all the names ! Whilst this has been happening, a lot of those players are then sold to other clubs – for a lot less than we paid for them; & suddenly become capable footballers once more. The mind boggles at what appears to be going on at our club !
Spot on Gonzo. We lurch from one manager’s preference to another (exacerbated by the 4x we’ve had in the last 3x trfr windows) together with Steidten and Sullivan’s picks adding to the unstructured process the club has in recruitment.