By Dave Langton
The West Ham boss has been described as both ” Dithering Dave” and “Due diligence Dave.”
Each will adopt whichever feels right to us but beyond that discussion there is another problem facing the club and its impatient fans right now,
And it is that Moysie seems to think that West Ham are a much more attractive option than players seem to think they are!
The Hammers tried to bring Lille’s Amadou Onana into the club by making a bid for him last week. This morning we learned the French club want in excess of £50m for him. 
And we’ve also seen, this morning, Kalvin Phillips join Manchester City for £42m. That’s £8m less than the Hammers offered to pay Leeds in January.
But the England international wanted to move to the Premier League champions and play in the Champions League, so Leeds have accepted a lower offer to allow him to chase his dreams. They stood firm when the Hammers came knocking.
Darwin Nunez is another. Moyes wanted him in January, a big bid went in, but Benfica stood firm. He has instead moved to Liverpool to strengthen their title chances; he will be playing Champions League football next season too.
The fact is, West Ham simply can’t offer either the wages or the glitz and glamour that Champions League clubs can. So it is a waste of time pursuing players who want to play at the highest level.
Raphinha, too, was the subject of a bid in January. He will be joining either Barcelona or Chelsea this summer; the common factor there? They’re both in the Champions League!
West Ham, right now, can offer Europa Conference League football, and the chance to come into a squad in desperate need of a rebuild.
So far, the Irons have signed two players, Nayef Aguerd and Alphonse Areola who was here last season and has been convinced to stay, so you could argue that the only proper signing is Aguerd.
The squad at the London Stadium is desperately short of numbers up front, on the flanks, in central midfield and at left-back.
But the Hammers are currently chucking bids about for players who seem destined to go elsewhere. It is incredibly frustrating to watch, and we’re only a week or so away from the first pre-season friendly.
Moyes needs to remember who West Ham are and work within those constraints; get your head out of the clouds, Dave.
Feels like, since the final whistle at the AmEx in May, Moyes can’t do anything right in the eyes of some people, even though he’s delivered – rather than just promised – European football two seasons in a row. Also, feels like the debate has moved on Moyes to criticising Moyes for having a go for players that are Champions League quality, without any of the people involved in the debate knowing the full extent of Moyes’/Newman’s transfer window ambitions and negotiations. Also, the criticism keeps on coming, even though there are still nearly two .months of the wondonw left. It all seems rather odd.
Sorry ljd . It’s not that he can’t do anything right. Just that he hasn’t done much at all and it is just a couple of weeks before pre season starts/He has done that with other people’s signings. Perhaps you don’t accept that this is a big moment in his managerial strategy
He’s signed two players since the window opened! What do you want from him? Quantity rather than quality? The sort of window Bilic delivered before he was sacked? Simone Zaza, anyone! Jonathan Callieri?! The sort of window Pellegrini had before he was sacked? It IS a big moment for Moyes, I agree. The problem I have is that he’s being condemned before the moment has passed.
Given that no one of any note seems to really want to sign for us ; & allowing for the fact that none of us are party to the management’s decisions on who they want & who they bid for, or what the actual situations with prospective players are; isn’t it time for Moyse etc to identify & bid for players from lower leagues & less fashionable clubs. It seems that we can’t attract any of our big targets, so why don’t we adjust our sights accordingly. If we do so, we save on inflated transfer fees & salaries – which we can use to increase Soucek’s wages. I’m all for that. We can I’ll afford to lose Soucek & have to replace him with a sub-standard player. Or, perhaps Moyse has got it all in hand & we are worrying over nothing ! But, it seems that we are running short of time & targets !
You are criticising the best West Ham manager since John Lyall. By the time he retires I wouldn’t be surprised if David Moyes has the better record.
i understand all of your views ,they are a bit unrealistic, but, we would all be moaning that if he didnt aim high enough for quality players, if he dont try, we dont know, sooner we try than just give in to under rated new signings
this youtube video is much the same as you have reported here:
https://youtu.be/DAfOtBg-DKw
Your point?
You’re right proven manager who has taken us to new heights needs to change his strategy to do what Dave Langton says is correct (can’t remember the football experience he has, but sure it sounds like a lot more than Moyes has).
No problem with making bids and being turned down as long as the right people eventually come in.
Aguerd could maybe also have gone to a higher team so it is worth at least trying for the best, it will help the squad have a chance of finishing higher than Europa conference.
Friendlies are coming (in which we learn very little, I remember Maiga looking good and Avram grant winning every game lol) but they are mainly about fitness and these players will be getting that with their own current teams.
Plus we know our improved 1st eleven is good enough to start the season (Antonio will be fresh again), the main thing is we have the signings in for rotation, and that won’t be such an issue for the first few weeks.
The time to complain and/or panic is once the window is closed, until then chill and don’t look at too many transfer sites!
Couldn’t agree more…spot on🥺
I think we have to be realistic about transfers and not go down the hysterical route we can all see if we log onto some of the click bait You Tube offerings. It’s no secret most deals are concluded during the last week of transfer windows and it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why? Why should any aspiring footballer put pen to paper in early July if Club A makes him an offer ? Wouldn’t it be more sensible for the player and his agent to wait and see whether Clubs B,C and D also come along ? Imagine how gutted a player would be if he rushed into signing for West Ham , Leicester or Newcastle for example and later learned that Manchester City,Chelsea and Tottenham had expressec interest.
Imo the whole business of transfer windows is a nonsense. I preferred it when a potential buying club contacted the club of a player they wanted, opened a dialogue.and did the deal if agreement was reached. None of this ridiculous feeding frenzy we get in artificially imposed transfer periods.
I have to agree with this.
Really don’t understand why one of Dennis or Cornet haven’t been plucked from their respective teams to plug the very massive gap on our left side attack, and a left back like Charlie Taylor just to have the squad depth. Cresswell may well retire sooner rather than later, and having an experienced stop gap like Taylor allows you to find the long term replacement with no rush and the purchasing team knows you aren’t desperate.
Same for the striker position, why haven’t we got our back up (young and hungry or old and experienced, it simply doesn’t matter) to Antonio, which gives us less pressure to get the long term Antonio replacement in through the door asap.
Glad to see West Ham fans getting interested this early in the pre-season process.
Fair to say, West Ham have been ‘linked with’ countless targets by websites/fanzine/agents etc. (It is silly season after all?!?!) but only those inside West Ham know what the plan & budget is.
Transfer fees don;t appear to follow much logic right now, asking prices are soaring, perhaps Moyes’ needs time to see his squad in action/training to see what he and his team have and need in order to compete.
Let’s face it, Moyes has delivered so far, why doubt him know?
I think we’re doing pretty well having signed three players already so early in the window. Leicester haven’t bought one player yet. Long way to go and in the meantime Moyes gets to have a good look at all the youngsters in preseason. Maybe one or two of them could save us a few quid in the transfer market. Moyes has done a great job so far in my book. I’m hoping for next season to be just as good. I’ve got no desire to go back to how it was pre Moyes.
Now I’m assuming the way this works is that Moyes will give the board a list of targets and they will go out and negotiate the fees and wages.
From what we read either we’re not offering enough in wages (is why Lingard allegedly keeps turning us down) or offering ridiculous low transfer fees to clubs. Not sure we can blame Moyes for that.
If his targets are too ambitious then the board need to be telling him that. But what I suspect is happening here is he has all kinds of targets on his list – and given his past managerial record – his preference tends to be for lesser names. So is the board just going after the big names on his list? Let’s face it, Sullivan has history there previously in promising a big name at start of a window and usually failing to deliver it.
So this article seems a tad unfair on Moyes, but seems to be the way it’s going here since the season ended. Stinks of deflecting criticism from the board, as per usual.
Newman doing the negotiating now
If u wanna stay here don’t talk in the manner of the last para without knowing the facts. And SHOULD we support the board that will be our choice. W wont insult you as you seem to want to us. If u don’t wanna stay no prob. You dont seem to understand either that Sullivan no longer has control
I think this is a collective issue to solve, something is wrong in our process for acquiring targets and has been for a long time, agree with the posts above that we don’t want Zaza’s and Callieri’s and possibly with Vlasic we have signed another one, Benrahma stats no matter what varying opinions there may be of him shows him to effective.
If Newman is now negotiating then why are we not signing players or getting bids accepted ?
It feels like there is not enough money available for the amount of players we need to sign and possibly issues around how much per week we are prepared to pay, those things are understandable and if so instead of signing 7 blockbuster players sign 4, we could have signed Keane Lewis-Potter by now which would appease us as fans because we can see his potential, Broja seems a million miles away even if Chelsea would sell him to a rival. We should be tapping these players up like other clubs do and know that they will join us before the window opens.
Thise who suport Moyes – and that’s fair enough – do not want to accept this but this is the way he operates in windows. He’s uncertain and changes his mind about players.