One of the more notorious rumours from the summer transfer window that had us all going – probably especially since at that time West Ham had no signings and the atmosphere around the club was pretty gloomy – concerned Portuguese midfielder Gustavo Sá who was linked heavily with The Irons.
News out of Portugal even had Sá travelling to east London for a medical, in what proved to be ultimately spurious claims by journalists in what seems in hindsight a pretty carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation.
Infamous ‘Gustavo Sá to West Ham’ story kept us all guessing last summer
From the player’s perspective, there was never any contact with West Ham, as revealed today by sportwitness.co.uk who carried the original story back in June:
“Sá was directly asked about the reported West Ham opportunity. His answer couldn’t have been much clearer.
“I honestly know zero about that,” Sá said. “Of course I remember when the stories came out I was with my girlfriend at Azurara beach, in Vila do Conde.”
“I started getting bombarded with messages and stories saying I was on my way to London for West Ham, and that’s the most I ever knew about it.”
So while reports had Sá travelling to England, the midfielder was actually sitting on a beach in Portugal wondering what was going on. He says nobody ever informed him of talks with West Ham. Nor did he know anything about the clubs reaching an agreement.”
Sá eventually made his move to Nottingham Forest – since when he’s been immediately loaned out to Super League Greece club Olympiacos, and West Ham got their man in Celtic’s Arne Engels instead.
Seemingly all’s well that ends well and a lesson to all over relying on reports from overseas journos who seems to be peddling planted stories, whatever their aim.