By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
It seems the wheels of transfer activity can, in fact, turn quickly when it comes to selling players because West Ham have agreed a deal for Aaron Wan-Bissaka to move to Aston Villa.
Earlier today, as reported by Martin on Claret & Hugh, the Midlanders had a straight loan deal for the right-back rejected by the Hammers.
However, there has now been a significant development, with Fabrizio Romano giving the transfer his famous ‘here we go’.
Romano reports that Aston Villa have agreed a loan deal containing a mandatory buy clause, with Wan-Bissaka giving the green light to the move and a medical now set to follow.
That mandatory purchase changes the complexion of the deal considerably and explains why West Ham were prepared to reject Villa’s earlier straight-loan proposal.
Wan-Bissaka heading back to Premier League
Having spent the best part of two months trying to find a buyer for the former Manchester United and Crystal Palace full-back, it appears the Hammers have finally found a solution which will see AWB return to the Premier League.
Wan-Bissaka has fallen out of favour with Nuno Espírito Santo and, from the player’s point of view, has probably fallen out of love with the club.
It’s a massive shame given the potential he displayed by winning Hammer of the Year during his first season.
We don’t yet know the value of Villa’s mandatory purchase clause, but having demanded £25 million for Wan-Bissaka earlier today, it will be interesting to see how close West Ham have managed to get to that valuation.
The timing is certainly interesting because, as I wrote earlier today, West Ham are already scrambling for defensive reinforcements after missing out on Axel Disasi.
Removing another experienced defender from Nuno’s squad only adds to the work Nils Koppen needs to get done.
Wan Bissaka is set to join Aston Villa
West Ham squad getting thinner
And Wan-Bissaka certainly isn’t the only one heading towards the exit door.
Niclas Füllkrug is heading back to Werder Bremen, while Edson Álvarez is also closing in on a departure.
Then there is El Hadji Malick Diouf.
Reports today suggest West Ham and Brentford are moving closer to a deal worth around £40 million for the Senegalese defender.
That’s an awful lot of players potentially disappearing from a squad which already looked painfully thin during the 2-2 draw at Burnley.
Perhaps it’s now time for Koppen to be equally effective when it comes to buying players.
West Ham have demonstrated once again that they can get players out of the door.
Now we desperately need to see a few more coming through it.
I’d seriously love to know what people were watching at Burnley to provoke these kinds of reactions?!? Scarles is simply shocking. I know he’s young, English and an academy prospect but he’s offers nothing going forward, terrible tackler, slow and plays side ways and backward. Selling diouf would do 2 things. 1, condem us to another position we need to spend money on and 2 tells the prem clubs we’re door mats and we’re a selling club once again even though we’re flat and stretched thin. I want to see youth from the academy’s make the grade but this is absolutely no time for sentiment when the player will cost you hundreds of millions if we fail to get promoted.
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Scarles unfortunately does not beat anyone going forwards as you say. He is not vocal enough either, calling out free players needing marking. Potts was similar, never saw him shimmy past anyone, throw dummies and dribble past others in midfield.
Maybe Scarles will learn from his mistakes, I don’t know, but Potts did not while at WHU.
The U21s play give-and-go, with quick, neat passing and it is very effective, I think they could do it in their sleep but individual skills with a ball seem to be lacking for too many of them, unless you are talking of Fearon, Ajala, Earthy, Orford;.bearing in mind they have been training in a club environment since age 8.
Really need to review individual Academy failings despite their overall team successes and look at coaching one-on-one for those academy players now training with the 1st team. Noble should be stepping in and fixing this.
He was always going to go. He came back a very different player after the World Cup, for whatever reason.
We do need a few more in, but let’s not talk it up into a crisis.
The exodus of players must reflect badly on the manager and his hopeless tactics. He should be the one leaving not all the players
Kretinsky said that there would be no need to sell.
The sales of Fernandez, Summerville, Pott generated some £160m.
With the departures of Alvarez, AWB, and possibly Diouf and Magassa, the total sales figure will keep increasing.
Only a small fraction of the sales money is being reinvested in new players.
Will someone provide an answer to how much money is actually available to hire new players and fill openings?
With the arrival of Engels and Solomon the replacements for Fernandez and Summerville are in place.
It has taken forever to get the key new signings over the line. Given that, it is likely that we will see only few additional signings completed in the present transfer window. Certainly less than the openings generated by the many players announcing that they prefer not to stay as part of the West Ham squad.
With the loss of even more players, and the number of departures being greater than the number of arrivals by a significant margin, getting back to the PL after one season, seems a formidable task and will remain a big concern.
No loss losing players that don’t want to be here unfortunately there’s a list of them. Rather see some lads coming through other clubs seem to do it on a regular basis
Can the last one left turn the lights out!
There’s only one person who should be going and that’s nuno I’m afraid , he hasn’t learnt from last season , im worried we are going to be stick in this division for years to come
I am worried , we look so threadbare no back ups , need a central defender who is quality and can build a partnership with Mav. Need a right back , left back , left wing right wing and 2 strikers . I still don’t understand how we can’t pay up for Parrott . Any chance to resurrect that should be revisited will be worth the fee .
More wages freed up. Time to put as much energy into bringing players in as we’ve invested in getting them out the door. No financial restrictions per the board so time to put up and find some quality. Please not another threadbare squad this season. We deserve better.
I would rather have seen that leaving headline applied to NES, but if Sunday is anything to go by, his name will come to the fore soon enough. The only problem with that is that he is not likely to fire himself and I don’t think anyone else there has the appetite for it.
If we dont replace the exiting players adequately we dont get promoted. Pretty onvious. At this juncture, with Alvarez, Diouf, Todibo and Magassa still in the departure lounge, we need “starter” quality for CDM, LB and IMO at CB too. Thats without mentioning gaps in the squad for VDM ( no Soucek is not a CDM ), wide left and right as backup for Bowen and Solomon. We also arguably need creative back up for Engels unless we think that is Orford.
All the above must not be slow or we will resemble a “walking football team” of pensioners even more than we have for most of the last 20 years
I despair and am preparing for a long stay out of the PL unless our new DOF or whatever we call him can pull some “rabbits from the hat” over the next 12 days
Why aren’t Villa completing a permanent deal for AWB from the start?
I’m surprised that the club are doing any deals with the Villa being they rolled over against the spuds and kept moving the goalposts over a deal for Jhon Duran.
Couldnt agree more
Last one out please turn the lights off…
At this rate we will be doing a Leicester
haven’t we already covered this positional departure with Veltman Kris ? x
Wan Bissaka was never in love with the club.
He is in love wirh only money and himself.
Good riddance, he waa average at best last season.
He was always going so he doesn’t really add to the ‘extra exodus’ we seem to be witnessing. The only real surprise is Diouf, we didn’t really expect Alvarez to be staying a couple of weeks ago. Problem with Diouf going is Scarles just isn’t good enough and that’s not just based on Sunday but last year too.
Gonna be a VERY interesting next two weeks
All players who wanted and needed to go. Given our financial position its difficult to see how we can buy replacements until we know outcome of sales. Hopefully now we can move to achieve purchase targets. It isn’t easy as the best will want Premier League!
No loss losing players that don’t want to be here unfortunately there’s a list of them. Rather see some lads coming through other clubs seem to do it on a regular basis