News that West Ham’s target, Youssouf Fofana, had agreed to personal terms with AC Milan weeks ago—and still desires the move—raises questions about why the Hammers pursued him in the first place. It certainly seems odd that the Irons would make a bid today armed with that information.
This incident should come as no surprise to West Ham fans, as it has become something of a regular occurrence. The club’s negotiation team seems to struggle with determining whether a player wants to join before making a transfer bid.
Unfortunately, the players who do want to join often come from clubs with whom West Ham struggles to negotiate. Both Jhon Duran and Kyle Walker-Peters are keen on moves to the London Stadium. Yet, despite their eagerness to join Julen Lopetegui’s Claret & Blue revolution, agreements on fees with the selling clubs remain elusive.
On the other hand, West Ham has made bids for players like Jean-Clair Todibo, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and Youssouf Fofana, who clearly have no desire to join the club. It seems the Irons negotiators either fail to conduct their due diligence by speaking to players’ representatives before bidding or they hope their preferred options fall through, and they might get lucky.
Todibo rejected West Ham yet we keep trying
As the transfer window progresses, it’s questionable how much has actually changed at the club. While the transfer of Brazilian youngster Luis Guilherme seemed to signal a new, more structured approach to recruitment, this method appears to have been abandoned in favour of the old, less effective scattergun tactic.
Despite an expanded scouting department and data analytics experts, and supposedly a dossier of the finest upcoming talent in world football, the actual recruitment practices seem unchanged. As things stand, West Ham are starting to resemble the bloke at the bar who won’t take no for an answer at the end of a night out.
As regards Southampton we had the perfect bargaining chip they were desperate for our player, yet we let himgo there then try to negotiate for there player ,seems rather amateurish to me ,how much common sense does it take
Same old story – going back awhile – I remember John Lyall trying unsuccessfully to sign Kerry Dixon from Chelsea and we ended up with Leroy Rosenior who scored two goals in a 4-1 victory against Chelsea (and then got sent off for throttling Steve Clarke) – ultimately those goals helped to keep us up
COYI
Give it a rest you melt
A really good article and seems to me to put our affairs in a nutshell. The only doubt i have is that some of the allegeged ‘news or scoops’ are total fabrication. Who else gets so much written about all their imagined enquiries. To try and force a transfer onto a player who doesnt want to come seems crazy to me. So far as Steidten is concerned i am praying that in the longer term he will be successful. The current problem is that he has to buy established players and cannot look for young unknown bargains in our situation. I also think that funds are not unlimited and we have to sell to keep buying and so far we have sold one for money. Not an easy situation but hopefully will evolve in the next few weeks.
Who is the constant in this Sullivan.
Since we signed our first 3 players and you applauded Steidten and his team, you and your colleagues have done nothing but criticise every rumour as if they are true. Can I suggest you wait until th window closes as I suspect you will be eating your words
After all there’s always another transfer window……….
Plain shopping rules of life, part 1:
-Only offer to buy if there is a desire to sell or player to be sold.
-Have a maximum price in mind from the start, stop horse trading if your maximum is smaller than the sellers minimum price.
-Tim should have set a strategy to succeed, to date it’s all Rob Newman and Moysie esk, mixed with a little Sullivan psycho, just to confuse all involved.
A bit last of the summer wine sharing a caravan with Dell boy and trigger. Sort it out gents, the season hasn’t started and the fanbase are all arsey!
Give it a rest, don’t believe half of the rubbish that is published. Have some faith and give support to what is obviously a much more professional team than we have had in the oast
So you are saying we offer the full asking price for players we know don’t want to join us, and attempt to haggle for those who do? Is the former an attempt to placate fans who the club think are dumb enough to fall for it, and the latter shows we remain market traders who insist in a discount? Sound familiar? Perhaps everything wasn’t Moyes’ fault?
Whilst understanding buying players is very difficult due to the greedy agents these players have also their clubs demands regarding sell on clauses. I must agree it’s the same old story. Moyes took the blame previously for this but it now looks like our recruitment team is actually not good enough
Unfortunately at the moment we absolutely need to sign players and we cannot pay high prices for all of them.
Was the bid on Masraoui to force Man Us hand knowing that it would mean them being more eager to move Wan Bissaka on at a reasonable price ?
Clubs know that we need to buy which is why were being quoted high prices. Duran and Walker Peters are top dollar prices that have not been negotiated on as they would normally be expected to be.