By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
There’s been a lot of discussion within the West Ham community about Daniel Kretinsky’s pledge to try and keep key players at the football club.
Whilst the new Hammers head honcho is clearly doing everything he can to retain as many players as possible and get West Ham back to the Premier League at the first attempt, it’s surely unlikely the club will be able to keep hold of everybody, no matter how admirable the intentions.
So, as much for a bit of fun as anything else, I thought we’d take a look at some of the players who would be considered ‘key’ and try to work out how likely they are to remain at the club.
Surely Hermansen is staying?
Mads Hermansen
Very much a key player and has pretty much hinted that he’ll be remaining at the London Stadium.
Expect him to stay and be one of the better goalkeepers in the Championship next season.
Jean-Clair Todibo
It matters little at this point whether Daniel Kretinsky considers JCT a key player or not.
Rumour has it he’s refused to play for Nuno Espírito Santo again, and I doubt very much he’d be on the manager’s retained list.
I expect him to leave.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka
This one is intriguing because there were points during the season where Wan-Bissaka didn’t perform particularly well.
Clearly he’s wanted by other clubs, but such was the performance of Kyle Walker-Peters that I’m not entirely sure the club need to fight too hard to retain him.
He struggled to match the standards of his first season when he won Hammer of the Year.
I think he’ll go.
El Hadji Malick Diouf
Putting my own personal opinion of the player aside, I think this one is 50-50.
I also don’t believe there will be anywhere near the level of demand that his agents seem to think exists.
Could stay.
Konstantinos Mavropanos
Honestly, I think he’d be an absolute beast in the Championship.
His form last season suggested he’s too good for that level, but our intention to keep players has to start kicking in somewhere.
Probably 50-50 again, but if the club push hard, I think they could retain him.
We may well find a contract discussion is needed, though, because everybody in the squad apart from Jarrod Bowen faces a 50% wage reduction.
Dinos, Taty & Big Sou
Mateus Fernandes
No chance. He’s leaving. No point even talking about it.
He’s too good, has time on his side and his agent is Jorge Mendes.
He’ll be off.
Tomas Soucek
Not beyond the realms of possibility that we could persuade him to stay.
He’s got one year left on his contract and it will be interesting to see whether the Czech connection between Soucek and Kretinsky comes into play.
He absolutely loves the football club, as Claret & Hugh have been told repeatedly by his representative.
Crysencio Summerville
He’ll be gone.
The World Cup could help West Ham secure a better fee, but I’d be amazed if he’s here next season.
Jarrod Bowen
At this stage, I believe he’ll stay.
Reports regarding his wages are wide of the mark.
My understanding is that Bowen is on around £140,000 per week basic wage, which would still leave him with plenty of performance bonuses available in the Championship.
Keeping him would be the ultimate statement of Daniel Kretinsky’s ambition and wallet.
I’m very hopeful on this one.
Taty Castellanos
I think he’ll stay and be one of the best players in the Championship if he can remain injury-free.
Expect a few red cards along the way, but make no mistake about it, Taty has become a key player for the football club.
If West Ham can keep him, it will go a long way towards securing promotion.
Like Bowen and Soucek, he’s too good for the Championship, so persuading him to spend a season in the second tier would be a huge result.
Over To You
To state the obvious, these are just my opinions.
At this point, it’s really difficult to say what will happen.
I understand there are other players such as Magassa, Kanté, Kilman and Pablo, but I think it’s difficult to consider them key players at this stage, so I’ve left them out of the conversation.
I’d be very interested to know what you think in the comments below.
I agree with that. I don’t think Diouf is the finished article yet and, with that in mind, the fee we’d demand would likely put most clubs off. I also hope we keep the youngsters who have started to break through.
If DK is serious about retaining players and adding investment then, for the players identified as targets to stay, he can always waive the 50% salary reduction or negotiate somewhere between 50% to 100% of their current pay
Agreed Gonzo. Summerville and Fernandes on their way. Good luck to them. They were excellent for us. Happy to see Todibo and Wan Bissaka leave. But we need the rest. I reckon Nuno and Danny K can persuade them. I’d consider, by the way, trying to get Coufal back. Loves the club. Great influence….COYI
Good shout mate
Good article (and I also liked and agreed with the sentiment in the Nickson article – the fact that someone in the club knows enough stuff to have identified Nickson).
On the who stays / who goes front, I think we could realistically keep the following seven (which would give us a great start towards assembling a strong squad): Hermansen, Walker-Peters, Mavropanos, Soucek, Kante, Bowen, Castellanos.
If we can bring £200m from sales, reinvest £50-75m on say half a dozen, sign another six on frees/loans, then with some of our useful youngsters added in, we’ll have a squad that gives us a fighting chance.
I like that Rich
Out of that lot if we can keep Taty, Bowen, Dinos and Soucek, I will be delighted. KWP, Scarles, Kante and Potts are also more than capable of stepping up next year. If we do sell Fernandes and Summerville and some of Todibo, Wan Bissaka, Diouf, Magassa, Kilman, Pablo then you would hope there would be funds available for a decent rebuild.
I believe Summerville and Fernandes already have their bags packed ready to go. As for the rest it depends on the calibre of teams who want them. If it’s an Arsenal or City they’ll be gone but anyone mid table or below I think they’ll stay, at least until January. The biggest laugh I’m having at work at the moment is listening to the Spurs fans thinking that there’s a chance of Bowen, Summerville and Fernandes going to join a team that finished just above the relegation zone in the last two seasons.
Good ready! Please do the others as well 🙂
I think Bowen and Souchek stays, Taty I’m 50/50. AWB might force an exit, a promotere team for 7.5-10m would be my gress (I know it’s below asking price, but we might just take the money to reinvest a backup to KWP (don’t think we have any up and coming LBs?)