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Moyes explains how the Haller bid happened

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David Moyes  had no plans to sell  Sebastian Haller but decided to take the offer from Ajax when it came out of the blue.

The manager told  a virtual press conference on Saturday morning of the events leading up to the sale of the Frenchman who is now an Ajax player.

And it was at some variance to the version given by the Dutch club who had claimed that they had been working on the deal for three months.

That too was different to what we had learned by agents close to the situation who had explained that three Bundesliga0 clubs had wanted to loan the player and one were in with a permanent offer.

And although Haller is claimed to have wanted to wait until summer he made it clear that once Ajax came in it was an offer he couldn’t refuse , presumably as it meant a move to a club where a manager who knows his game inside out is employed and whom he believed would get his best from him

Moyes said: “I think that the Seb Haller situation was simply that we got an offer, we didn’t expect it, we weren’t planning to lose Seb this window.

He’s done great for us, he’s won a few games recently with his goals, so we wish him well. I think it’s a really good move for him to go to Ajax and it was something which maybe if we didn’t take this offer now maybe we would not have got it at a later stage, so we just felt it was the right thing to do. But it certainly wasn’t planned.”

Asked whether selling Haller was good business for West Ham Moyes replied “One thing you need to do as a manager, is make sure that you have spaces to bring people in, if you don’t have spaces then all you do is gather players and it becomes more difficult.

So, part of the job is to create room for it, we have now created room that we can bring players in. Are we ready for that? No, not really. But we will go along and we’ll do what we can and we will try and bring in what we think are the right players.”

On the Snodgrass departure, he revealed he had sanctioned his exit because he had just six months remaining on his contract and already has two other players in that position. He added he wanted to help him as he could guarantee him game or a new contract saying it was the right thing to do.
He said: “Robert Snodgrass was going to be out of contract in the summer and with us having Yarmolenko and Jarrod Bowen playing in a similar position, it made it something which we wanted to help him with.
Snoddy’s been fantastic for the club, he is a great character, he’s great around the club, we didn’t want to lose him for those reasons, but also at this moment in time, I couldn’t guarantee him that I was going to give him another contract for next year. So we felt the right thing to do, the fair thing to do was to allow him to move on.”

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I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball,

I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh.

Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons!

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5 comments

  • Henry says:

    Grealish, Zaha, Kane, Sterling, salah. All dirty cheating divers that fall over at the slightest touch.

  • Taffyhammer says:

    Explained – end of. No need for Hallergate inquiry.

    Strange to think we have to get an attacking body in straight away. Maybe that the right man is not yet available ? Better to wait and get the player we want than to fill up places just to ‘please’ the box-tickers.

    Interesting to see Ason Villa’s Jack Grealish did not want to be cup-tied so missed the Liverpool FA Cup game. Not a big fan of his – needs to pull his socks up and stop the ‘intelligent and clever’ play of falling over to ‘win’ free kicks. Wilf Zaha ditto. That’s two off the list.
    COYI

  • Dave says:

    Seems strange, Haller, his people and Ajax all nee this was going on for months( hence no tackles from him) but Moyes knew nothing.
    I wonder how much Sullivan knew and when, seems strange they knew what to bid to have it accepted in the first week of the window.
    Makes Moyes look a bit stupid if Sullivan was working on it…

  • Childish says:

    Snod was top man wish he could of stayed but I understand…with the haller sale and maybe a couple others, it always looks like we accept first bid ..I could be wrong but it always sounds to me that we are a bit soft when it comes to negotiating deals…very surprised we havnt got a concrete plan for a new forward..well in my eyes another 2 forwards because we wanted one anyway with haller,,suprised this has not spoke about more …what’s your take hugh ..wd needed a new striker with haller so if we but now we are in no better position..we will still only have 2 forwards,, and most clubs if not all normally have 3 …?

  • blimey! says:

    Shame to see Snoddy go, although understand the managements thinking as they look forward to getting players in and promote youth from the Academy

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