West Ham’s midfield issues become more serious by the match and yet the one name mentioned as a realistic possible arrival is Samir Nasri!!
With Lanzini, Yarmolenko and Sanchez on a long term injury list and with question marks hanging over captain Mark Noble, I find that pretty extraordinary and worrying.
At 31 and with a track record of trouble behind him he is not the answer in any shape of form despite me having been an admirer of him in the early days.
We are told the manager likes him, which figures given their time together at Manchester City, but far too much has happened in the four or five years since – quite apart from him getting older – for him to become a candidate.
We are told the manager also insisted on Jack Wilshere and that’s not worked out too well at this point. I’m not sure many ever believed it would.
We saw the issues in midfield again at Huddersfield yesterday. Serious money needs to be spent again this winter if a real solution is to be found in the middle of the park – the problem is so obvious that it can’t be solved by a six month Nasri arrival with a possible option.
The three injured midfielders cost a total of £25 million – a cheapie arrival in the form of Nasri is obviously past his best – would take us back to the bad old days of sticking am Elastopast on a gaping wound.
The Wilsher gamble hasn’t worked – let’s not go down that road again. We know where it leads!
I think the article is quite negative l can’t say for sure but I think Wilshere will come good as the team start to play better and he would be helped by a midfield willing to make runs in behind, as for Nasri I don’t like him as a person but as a footballer he has a lot of ability. We need players that have skill and Nasri is in the last chance saloon so it may be that we get a player with a point to prove,alternatively we might get the opposite but if he doesn’t cost much it would seem like a low risk gamble where we could hit the jackpot ?