West Ham need to adapt and move forwards from the “season-to-forget”. Of that there’s no doubt. But lessons need to be learned from the problems that arose and came close to derailing the Hammers last season: In particular, the loan deals which Lopetegui rubber-stamped on, or close to deadline day, to shove unwanted players out on loan almost caused chaos.
Sending a host of fringe players out to clear the way for incoming recruits on deadline day is not uncommon. Julen Lopetgiui dispatched James Ward- Prowse, Nayef Aguerd and Maxi Cornet by that method and earlier in the window sent youngsters Freddie Potts and George Earthy out to gain experience in the championship.
However the fact that only came to light in West Ham’s hour of need is that the senior players- Aguerd and Ward Prowse, pricnicappl, had no recall c cause inserted in to their loan agreements. Leaving only three centre backs in the squad was bad enough – but then when Todibo and Mavropanos were unavailable, West Ham were left with only one fit front line defender and had to be creative and call on the evergreen Aaron Cresswell and Vlad Coufal as make shift centre backs to play alongside Max Kilman.
At the same time that Hammers were still paying the bulk of Aguerd’s wages whilst being unable to bring him back from Real Sociedad. “Unbelievable, Jeff”, in true Kammy style.
As they Hammers contemplate sending out Lewis Orford on a season-long loan, and no doubt others to follow when the recruiting is finished and the serious business gets closer, one would hope they amend the loan deals to allow for emergency recalls. Unless it’s Maxi Cornet, of course. Fingers crossed he’ll stay at Genoa.
As much as Lopy may have wanted those loan deals the fact is that we had a DOF at that time who had the final say and had to carry the can
If only he didn’t have final say on the coach to replace Moyes and transfers.
Where’s Gonzo, Martin – realised haven’t seen a thread from him for ages.
On holiday ?
About everything that could be got wrong was got wrong last season. Will it change ? I’m not so sure the poor decision making might well be inherent.
Potter needs to learn from his own loan fiasco too as he wasted a loan fee and wages on Evan Ferguson!
Was worth a short term loan to see if he could get back to his best. Unfortunately hasn’t worked out. Although I’m sure experts like yourself knew better all along.
Difference between him and Fullkrug though is we can send Ferguson back now. We’re stuck with injury prone Fullkrug, who turns 33 this season, for another 3 years and can probably only unload him for a massive loss while still paying a percentage of his salary to whichever midtable Bundesliga side is willing to take him.
His injury record was much worse than Fullkrug and yes I did say before we went for Evan it was a mistake.
He played for twenty minutes the weekend before we took him was his first game back. It never did seem a likely proposition.
The most important lesson Potter needs to learn, is to stop sitting back allowing teams to attack, but to put more
emphasis on attacking football.
I don’t think he intends to do that. I think he subs Kudus and Bowen and we collapse as an offensive proposition, on a couple of occasions he subbed Fullkrug too. It then becomes inevitable rather than planned.