David Sullivan has moved to reassure fans the club is making several moves in the transfer window.
The co chairman – after thanking fans for their support against Palace yesterday – said: We have already made a number of bids on players to improve the squad, but the January transfer window is the most challenging time of the year to buy, and so far it has proved very frustrating.
We will keep working hard to bring in quality to improve the squad and I hope to have more positive news to bring you soon.”
The Hammers are particularly keen to bring in Robert Snodgrass but continue to have doubts about Brentford striker Scott Hogan given the players injury record which has included long term knee surgery.
That has certainly ruled out any bid in the region of the often mentioned figure of £15 million.
I don’t wish to appear rude to Mr Sullivan, but I don’t want to hear a word from him in January unless it’s to announce that we have actually signed a player. I’m not interested in following our negotiations in the media, tales of failing to meet pretty obvious pricing of players or reports of being turned own by players with over-inflated opinions of their own worth, or how Daniel Levy at Tottenham has reneged on another promise. If you just sign some quality, sell the dead wood and wantaways, many of us will be happy enough.
All this rubbish about Hogan and his leg, we had the same situation with Austin, if he had just paid the money for him and said nothing we would have had our 20 – 25 goal a season. Yes I know Austin is presently injured but he plays a lot more games every season than our present crop and always scores 20 or more goals, bid the money for Hogan and get him in for a medical if the knee is genuinely a serious injury risk then pull out and go all in for another target, it makes us look cheap like Tottenham all this ridiculous offers rubbish.
I too am sick of Mr Sullivan saying we have bids in place.Just wait and announce it when its all finalised.The Palace win has taken huge pressure off him because anything negative yesterday in the scoreline would have had the fans screaming for action in the transfer market.Get rid of Payet asap.Lanzini and Feghouli in the creative dept now.As for Hogan surely a stringent medical will show up any problems with his knee.Good God we have taken enough chances on foreign strikers in the past.If he is not right then move on to someone else.
I aint got a problem with signing Hogan.I reckon he will be with us within the next day or two after he was left out of the starting line up for Brentford.
Anyway if we do sign him we wont have to worry about restless forwards not getting enough game time.Him,Saks & China Doll will never all be fit at the same time 😁
We hear today that Middlesbrough are offering £10m for Snodgrass, thst could blow West Ham out of the water and ruin some plans.
I know it’s probably wrong thinking on my part, but I just wish West Ham would stop farting about, identify their targets and go and get them – and tell us about it afterwards. All this seemingly endless drip feeds of offers/refusals/new offers just does my head in, it seems so penny-pinching and amateurish. Maybe my attitude is wrong headed but there you are!
**Is the word ‘farting’ swearing? I apologise if I’ve broken any rules but it just was the most suitable word for how I feel.**
I mean this in no way to sound condescending if you so happen to be one of these fans MM but maybe,just maybe if fans stopped spending so much time on the internet looking for every little tit bit about us then it might not get you or others so up in arms.
Perfect example..You hear today Middlesboro are going to offer for Snodgrass…are you getting annoyed over something with truth in it or yet another tit bit in the press??
Posted this on another c&h article but given some comments I wanted to repost here. It’s time to move on as a club and show what we’re made of: iron. Hope nobody minds.
The club should be smart and build on this. For all the problems this season, yesterday really put things in perspective. Everybody has made mistakes this year – the board and their signings, the manager and his softly softly approach with payet that was taken advantage of and must have caused problems with other players, and the fans and our attitude toward the stadium. And yet despite all this, Payet’s deliberate treachery has highlighted something very important: nobody has done any of this with anything but the best of intentions. Sure, apparently they pave the way to hell, and anybody who watched the man city game might be inclined to agree, but it’s time to get things sorted.
The board know they need to deliver some quality signings. Of course the club needs to be run properly and if we’re all honest, I think we can all say nobody worries about the financial security of the club with our current board. In this regard, they are very good owners. That being said, sometimes they should go with their gut as fans rather than their heads as business owners. On the face of it, £15m for Defoe makes poor financial sense. I know this. But seeing him clinically put away his one chance yesterday, again, makes this a decision to be made as a fan. Will we see a return on investment? Not likely. Will he score goals? Undoubtedly. Will he give fans something to cheer and will he give the place a lift? Definitely. Value for money can mean many things. Not all of them are quantifiable.
The manager got the Payet situation wrong. I understand. He gave a lot to Payet. He went out on a limb and it almost cost him his job. Does this make him a bad guy? Nearly 60,000 West Ham fans yesterday emphatically answered the question: “Super, Super Slav…” Has he lost the dressing room? When he was under the cosh, his players dug deep and produced their best performance of the season. He’s still the king in that dressing room. Long live the King.
Lastly we need to take a look at ourselves as fans. I appreciate many people have experienced problems and there are still things to be sorted, not least the bad attitudes of some of the stewarding staff and the manner that Westfield seems to treat us as second class citizens despite it being our home, too. But we also need to do our part. At the end of the day, it is the fans that will make this house a home. Yesterday it felt like a fortress.
People say the atmosphere is suffering because of the distance to the pitch. I was lucky enough to be at the Chelsea game and again there yesterday. There was no problem with atmosphere. We need to realise that it is our responsibility, rain or shine, win or lose to do our bit, too. This season everybody and their dog has taken a dig at our great club. We’ve been made to feel like criminals from day one. But this is our home now. It’s time to be proud of it. To defend it. To make it the world class stadium it could be. Make no mistake, the roar from the fans yesterday pushed that team on to deliver everything we want as West Ham fans. I can barely speak today but it was absolutely worth it! But we need to do it every game.
Sam Allardyce once questioned what the West Ham way is. Yesterday he received the best answer we could possibly give. At the end of a depressing week that would have seen your fickle man Utd/Chelsea/arsenal/spurs fans point fingers, moan and fall apart, we stood together, rallied round our team, our club and our manager and sent him back to south London having seen goals and heard support the like he could only dream of. “Super Slav” must still be ringing in his ears.
Agree with most of what you say but lets be honest – we were really quiet until we scored the first goal. All you could hear was that *&^%*&%^ drum and the Palace fans. Unfortunately, the fans that do like to sing and chant are split up all over the stadium.
But that’s kind of my point. In other weeks, that first half display would have had the crowd on the players’ backs, would have had people more vocal in their criticism. Yesterday it was if we all knew to give them a bit more time, we all knew to bite our tongues. Even Feghouli was afforded his mistakes when in other weeks he would have got it in the neck. Like Pedro said on WHU site, the players could feel the support. This for me is what gave them confidence and why they kept going to the end and why we got the result we did. I wouldn’t say it was only after the first goal – the fans were singing for Slav from the beginning. Of course goals help but ultimately it’s give and take. Our support gave the players confidence, in return they gave us plenty to cheer. I just think we need to do it every week
Agree Dj yesterday and Chelsea we were Utd as a fan base and yesterday especially we did our bit to lift Slav and the team, there wasn’t a massive amount of noise in the first half except during and after Carrolls shot and I was expecting more from us, I was certainly trying to get involved despite sitting in amongst what I thought must be mutes, the observation I made was that when we moved the ball quickly the crowd got involved and when it was slow, sideways and ponderous the support was quiet, not sure if anyone else felt the same ? Despite that we all put a lot in especially second half and if we can keep that up and if we abandon the negative 352 formation for 442 I think we will be much more of a threat even though slightly more prone to attacks ourselves, won’t be at the next match sadly because £71 for a home match is a bit steep especially a midweek game, hopefully at the end of the season or before I might get accepted for an ST COYI !!!
It’s funny, I didn’t notice the drum at all – I’m in the middle of the East Stand and didn’t know anything about it until I read it on here – maybe I’m going deaf – ay, what did you say?
Crystal Palace ‘Ultras!!’ – really, are they having a laugh!
Nice one Steve, especially on role as fans.
“Lastly we need to take a look at ourselves as fans. I appreciate many people have experienced problems and there are still things to be sorted, not least the bad attitudes of some of the stewarding staff and the manner that Westfield seems to treat us as second class citizens despite it being our home, too. But we also need to do our part. At the end of the day, it is the fans that will make this house a home. Yesterday it felt like a fortress.”
Best paragraph buddy.Yesterday proved outright in the ground that when in a spot we the fans were there together.Its what we do & no amount of b1tching ****s on blogs trying to put a downer on the club everyday will change that.
Its a pity they wasnt in the ground yesterday.They were probably too busy b1tching on blogs….
Well, the January transfer window will be “challenging” when you offer 3 million for Snodgrass, be sensible and offer realistic money…
With the risk of repeating myself ; do we really need to make any signings this January ??
I am not convinced we need to .
Just cash in on that French parasite and save the money for a seroiuos sighning or two in the summer .
We showed how good we can be without Payet , in fact he was holding us back by playing a style to accommodate him . Hoping that Bilic has learnt a vital lesson . You Cannot build a team around One Player , it don’t work .
Give me a team of committed individuals against a few so-called stars anyday .
If we buy with serious intent then we should buy buy British .. the talent is there and there is no need to go so far and wide in the search of phantom talents . West Ham United have the perfect opportunity to set a precedent and succeed with home grown talent .
A club like West Ham cannot afford to see it’s better ( squad players ) players going off on trips to represent Thier countries when there is a League to play for .
Let’s blitz them next season . Come on you Hammers .
By letting Payet have his own way and showing him too much respect Bilic has tripped himself up .. so , Slaven it’s time to get the Hammers back to Thier fighting best .
What! are you having a laugh?
Get real – the Squad is paper-thin and lacking in quality – we definitely need a right-back, some power in midfield and an additional striker, plus some more options all through the team – all the dross from the Summer Transfer Window needs sorting out!
That’s only for starters, if the Club is to progress, as we all probably want, the playing staff has to be improved!
What do you consider as ALL the dross MM.Not a trick question im curious who you think should be jetisoned?
The squad is not paper thin MM other than at RB and now left wing we actually have competition for places, I agree we need to add more power in midfield and more pace especially up top but imo to say the squad is paper thin is wrong, let’s look forwards COYI
The only summer signings i would toss out are Zaza..gone now.Tore & Arbeloa..
Feg,Nordy,Fletcher,Fernandes are all proving their worth in a squad..Ayew has not had time to get a consistent amount of games under his belt.
Martinez,Quina seem to be progressing well.Calleri has barely featured so who knows..
Fans really do need to stop being so judgemental so quickly..they only make themselves look stupid most the time with their early opinion on players & then backtrack hoping no one noticed..computer game scouts..
Whatever our fan experts who deciede on a player straight away do they will never out do their amazing analysis of Antonio after about two matches.They concluded we had been mugged off by Forest & we should send him back immediately or send him out on loan in January (last year of course) because he was useless & absolute pants.You couldn’t make it up.
Sack the west ham sites scouts they are shocking 💩😱😂