It’s the silly season : Here’s what we know (and don’t know)

And so we are at that time of the year every so called ITK loathes !

Already the list of Hammers target grows and grows and in virtually every media story is tagged exclusive.

And very often the story represents nothing more than a pundit’s opinion on who somebody will or won’t join a club with whom the so called expert has no contacts  whatsoever.

Noel Whelan is  very often trotted out  – a guy who played for Leeds and has no contact with the Irons at all.

Kevin Phillips is another who was much travelled around nine clubs none of which included the Hammers.

In reality there much we don’t know and a little we do. The little includes a desire to sign Jesse Lingard and the fact too we have a great relationship with Slavia Prage where one clear target is striker Abdallah Sima.

Beyond that, and remember the season is only a week old here’s what we don’t know:

• Who is gonna sign Felipe Anderson or Andriy Yarmolenko …if anybody.
• Whether David Moyes is 100 per cent serious in wanting to hold onto Manu Lanzini
• and whether we should take any of these names mentioned as targets seriously  – Olivier Giroud, Adam Armstrong, Ivan Toney, Tammy Abraham, some Turk whose name escapes me along with three or four midfielders and defenders plus West Brom keeper Sam Johnstone .

What we do know

• Declan Rice is staying
• Fabian Balbuena is leaving
• David Martin is leaving
• Issa Diop is almost definite to stay.

I can also add one other ‘what we know’ passed onto me by a prime source. The club will sign the very best striker they can find at anything up to £35 million.

Same situation as last season when we were after central defender James Tarkowski at much the same price and ended up loaning one of the sensations of our season, Craig Dawson, and buying later for £3 million. Then of course there’s Vlad Coufal!

There will be much nonsense written, notably in the Turkish and Portuguese press and please ignore pundit views from those who have never had anything whatsoever to do with our club.

With David Moyes in charge, and the puller of rabbits from hats, absolutely anything can happen as we have already seen.

And even if he knows Whelan or Phillips I don’t think he will be letting on!