Three names – and a fourth emerging quickly – dominate any current discussion about West Ham United.
Jarrod Bowen, Tomas Soucek and the new right back Vladamir Coufal based on what we have seen so far this season are ready made Hammers stars snapped up at bargain prices and making a major impact.
Home grown Declan Rice is becoming a better and better player with Soucek alongside him, whilst Bowen was a snip at around £20 million and Couval – at £5 million – looks a brilliant piece of business based on his performances so far.
When one realises that Haller, Anderson and Yarmolenko cost us about 2 million short of £100 million it’s easy to understand why some of us really do hate the “spend millions” philosophy we hear across the forums every transfer window.
Soucek, Bowen and Coufal are among the best buys this club has made in many years and in real terms cost us a pittance by comparison transfer market dealings odf the past.
The arrival of the first two in January, and Coufal in the summer, prove a very big point – the so called marquee signings seen at this and other clubs over too many years may not be the way to go anymore.
Yes, there has been too much moaning and groaning about the financial impact of Covid-19 at our club ,when instead we should have perhaps been bigging ourselves up on the quality of players we have seen arrive at the club and become central to the success we are now experiencing.
That we have taken eight points from four of the toughest games we will face all season is a testament to that and for all the many past reservations we have had on the issue, our recruitment policy is at last starting to look much better.
Long may it continue – COYI.
This story IMHO is about where the game has been headed for some time. I think football, in general, has gone nuts, and my eyes were filled with nothing but success and glory when Moyes was dismissed the first time around and Pellegrini (the lazy chequebook manager) employed. We dragged the lazy fool all the way over from China to prove that managing by chequebook gives no guarantee of success.
Pellegrini had no love or vision of where he would attempt to take this club and once the players saw this in the band leader… the whole show then fell apart.
David Moyes, on the other hand, WANTS to be here, has a vision of where he wants to take us and has shown what pragmatic managers do, when looking to bring players to a club…due diligence. The same sort of thing that Fergie did when looking to bring players to Man Utd. Look at Chelsea as soon as they were able to get involved with transfers… all the big money big-name players flooded back (£220M for five players), but he jury is still out on whether these players will actually turn the club around. Look at Pépé at Arsenal, £72M, he’s never gonna justify that.
IF Moyes had remained as manager instead of Pellegrini being appointed, it could all look so different now.
I always thought it was ironic that Pellegrini commented about the unbalanced squad that he inherited. He then proceeded to ignore our weaknesses in defence and defensive midfield positions and make the squad even more unbalanced right up to the time of his departure.
I think The Cat is right to highlight due diligence when investing in players – not only their technical abilities but also their fitness records, their work ethic and crucially, their character and likelihood to fit in with the squad. Interviews we have all seen here with Bowen, Soucek, Coufal and the likes of Antonio, Rice, Ogbonna, Cresswell etc have all displayed a willingness to give their all for the team. A positive team spirit has been one of the most obvious benefits of the return of Moyes and his staff. Hard work, a good temperament plus a degree of humility appear to be qualities that will inform any Moyes signing. I don’t think Benrahma would be with us unless he had been able to satisfy Moyes in these areas and the intial interviews and recent actions by Benrahma suggest he is a grounded and loyal type of guy. King’s insistence on a massive wage increase appeared more important to him than a return to the top-flight, so maybe that had a bearing on which of these players we signed. Maybe.
Another thing about recruitment is the incalcuable role of chance – if Ngakia hadn’t decided to leave, we probably wouldn’t have signed Coufal. If Redknap hadn’t taken a chance on Di Canio, think what excitement we would have missed out on. Even Fergie got it wrong sometimes – for every Schmeichel and Cantona there was a Massimo Taibi and a Djemba-Djemba.
Thanks, Good Ole Daze… You have totally completed everything I wanted to say but couldn’t fit in.
Top Man COYI
Antonio too, £4m
45m is still not cheap
It’s easy to if you spend your hundred million on the players and not on their teams success. What I mean is for instance take anderson. His value was inflated from having played next to neymar. Take haller, his value was inflated by playing in a successful team at Frankfurt with exciting players either side of himself by. Take those players out of those teams and suddenly we see their true value we were foolish to be taken in by it.