West Ham could be set for a top-four charge IF the signings pan out!
The Hammers have thus far secured Nayef Aguerd, Alphonse Areola, Flynn Downes, and Gianluca Scamacca. 
Areola, of course, is a known quantity after spending last season on loan at the club; Aguerd is unfortunately injured but there are hopes he will return and become a top player in the heart of defence; Downes is a superb prospect, whom Patrick Vieira, at Crystal Palace, was tracking. Enough said.
And then there’s Scamacca, who has come in with a CV of scoring goals in Italy.
If it all appears to click; there’s really the potential of making a charge, especially when one looks at how other clubs are getting on.
While Manchester City and Liverpool have strengthened, and so have Spurs, there is a cloud of uncertainty over both Chelsea and Manchester United. The former have struggled to buy anyone and the latter are being distracted by the Cristiano Ronaldo saga.
Elsewhere, Arsenal can’t ever be trusted, and the likes of Leicester and Aston Villa are a unknown too.
The Irons have kept the bulk of their squad together – Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek both remain – and have also sprinkled some real quality on top.
There is the hope of adding further reinforcements, too, with the likes of Filip Kostic remaining a target.
If, and it may be a big if, the Hammers can genuinely click this season, and a push to take that final Champions League spot does not look at all out of the question.
Yeah… following the new signings I guess the “elephant in the room” is the prospect of top four. I don’t know about that but if we have an unreal season maybe, just maybe we’ll hang on to Rice and Bowen next summer, if we do we will have done very well indeed.
And maybe that will take top four finish but whatever, we will HAVE to finish no lower than 2nd in the London league to do it
The window is starting to look a bit more positive for us. We do still need a couple more to add depth.
We need another Defender because if injuries and Diop maybe moving. We need a another Mid, AM
LB & LW to make out squad a lot better.
I think outside Liverpool and City who will most likely be 1st and 2nd everything else is up for grabs, Utd are a mystery, Arsenal have had a good preseason and Jesus looks like scoring the goals for them, Tottenham have strengthened, Chelsea are in transition, Utd are in transition, Newcastle no one knows how they will do but they could be a handful, the biggest lottery is that it is a season of two halves and fixture lists are like our usual December many months, so who knows how that will pan out.
We are seriously lightweight for this fixture list and need more signings, not sure what was happening with David Raum but he should be our main priority now, far better than Kostic and would close up that avenue for teams to attack us, Onana is definitely needed in central midfield as Rice and Soucek can’t be expected to play every minute, Zielinski would be perfect to compete with Lanzini and Downes for the central role, Brereton Diaz or Terrier on the wing, maybe both, Ex says we have bids in for 4 loan players at big clubs maybe one is Abdo Diallo at PSG he is someone that can play lb and left cb although he won’t be crossing the ball in for goals so am not sure about anything more than a loan for him, unsure who the others are but it could be a good shout especially if we have an option to buy on some of these big players.
Lets not get carried away – he has never played in this country before. I remember the same happening on here when Haller signed…
True will probably take him a it of time to adapt but am hopeful as unlike Haller, he has pace and plays in a similar way to Antonio, Arnautovic in that he is used to being a lone striker, he is also very physical, mobile and has pace unlike Haller, who was slow and cumbersome and relied on better service than we could provide.
We’ve signed 4 players; 1 who was with us last season, one who could be out for 3 months, 1 who is a kid and likely won’t play much and 1 who is untested in the Premier League.
Get real, Dave!!
Spurs are much better than last season, ditto Arsenal, United have a manager with REAL pedigree (although i think they’ll still struggle) and the top 2 are the top 2. Villa have also strengthened to a greater degree than us. Top 6 would be an epic effort.
Top 4 with this current squad, even with one or two more, is a pipedream and that isn’t statutory Irons pessimism as i’m feeling quite positive about the season ahead.
Agree with you Saul we need to stregthen and we have had poor pre-season compared to previous ones even though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, we need at least another 5 players of the level of Scamacca or higher than those currently in the positions (LB,CM,DM,RW,LW) for top four, where the money is coming from god knows and whether we can sustain this level of development who knows, the other option is to sacrifice the cups to ease the load on the players and push harder in the league but that is putting all the eggs in one basket and a significant risk…
This season is a lottery I think and will produce a lot of unusual results, due to the amount of games, City and Liverpool will probably do well but Arsenal have European football as do Utd and Utd haven’t bought much so far for whatever reason, Arsenal are also susceptible to slumps in form over the last couple of seasons, Conte could end up losing the dressing room as he has done at many of his previous clubs. If we do sign Zielinski, Onana, Raum, Terrier, Kostic to name a few if most of those work and Aguerd is as good as Moyes says when he is fit, we will genuinely have a good chance at top 6 and possibly better, I don’t think Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea or Utd are all that, if games were won on paper probably Chelsea and Spurs would finish 3rd/4th if we sign those players, squad wise we are top 7 and Moyes usually has us punching above our weight so who knows. If he doesn’t get real and get the deals done, it could be a long unfruitful season.
100% agree Saul, sounds a bit like click bait lol.
based on our form and current squad (still thin!) top 6 would be overachieving at this point,
ERR,
Our club captian (since departed) said we were three players short of a squad last season.
Since then, we have lost another 4 thus far, recruited 3 new players plus 1 returning loanee. oh and one of them is out for maybe 1/3 of the season.
so still the squad is currently SMALLER than last year.
HOW? does that make us challenging in for the champions league? lol
Sorry, no way.
Come back IF we recruit another NET 3 players.
Dave if you’re not careful you’re going to get carried away —–by the men in white coats. We have , ignoring Areola who we had last season, brought in 3 new players one of whom is clearly seen for the future rather than the here and now and one is, conceivably, out until the World Cup and possibly even longer. So we have a new striker who we can assume will be a first choice but, as we stand, little else in the way of immediate strengthening of the first team.