West Ham’s transfer strategy this summer has yet to bear fruit despite the addition of first Nils Koppen as Head of Recruitment and just this week the drafting in of former Southampton recruiter Ben Chorley to assist.
The policy of aiming for Premier League-ready players is something of a high risk approach, with repeated knock backs likely as the Irons go looking for players willing to drop down a division for a season with no guarantee of an instant return to the top tier.
Ben Chorley joined West Ham on an interim basis to strengthen West Ham’s recruitment department.
Such is the case with their winger targets: No less than six clubs are reported to be in the mix for Sunderland’s Ivorian Simon Adingra meaning the Hammers have a mountain to climb. According to teamtalk.com the Hammers face competition from multiple top tier clubs:
‘West Ham and AS Roma among clubs interested in Simon Adingra; Newly promoted Premier League sides Ipswich Town and Hull City have also been linked with permanent moves, while relegated West Ham United have already held discussions with the player’s agents as they look to rebuild under manager Nuno Espírito Santo.’
Meaning the Hammers are aiming again at a player who is – literally – out of their league. All fine and good as an ambition but the clear danger is that, as things stand, West Ham fail to land new players whilst the clock ticks down. At some stage the club will have to shift its stance onto more attainable players which is presumably why Ben Chorley has been brought in.
Desperation or part of a cunning plan? Supporters will look on anxiously in the next couple of weeks waiting for news of the promised three or four signings, whilst hoping their optimism around this new era West Ham United isn’t misplaced.
Ahhh back to the good old ways at last…you no the ones where the club come out with “we really tried to get the player but we just could not get the deal done” but we are looking at other targets!
You can’t prepare for something you don’t know about and that’s whu being in premier league next year.
Concentrate on job in hand and that’s going back up.
Attempting to buy players good enough to play premier division in 18 months is over compensating.
Need to take consideration that Nuno might not be around and then players will change again.
Get 4-5 players signed to give fans winning exciting football which will also fulfil Kretinsky promise.
Do need a mix of younger players and experienced current team.
Our younger players do move quicker (Ajala etc) but need decent striker to put ball away.
It’s apparent positions that need strengthening but with preseason nearly done they need to hit ground running
A quick no 9 who puts the ball away and this team would start to look dangerous.
Cunning plan? It is a simple, but rather late realisation that players on Mendes’ books are not currently interested in joining this club at this time. Seems our high flying execs, including NES, were flying on WHU Airways and just made a forced, bumpy landing on one engine. No casualties as yet.
Does not answer why Sorba Thomas is not already signed, or about to. As Ex-employee I think we only need 3-4 very good players.
Personally, there is untried talent in the U21s and I would use them in midfield and Ajala looking to implement their style of play of quick, progressive passing. I think it was no 32 who said this is the best crop of players since Cole/Carrick.
They need time to develop. It is risky, but a good manager should be able to get them to play with the seniors. Players such as Bowen & Taty will easily adapt to play like the U21s because they are skillful and do this easily, but not JWP, so unfortunately, for me he is not a midfield option because of this.
You do not automatically put in all the U21s – for me Scarles goes out on loan, for instance. Fearon, might not be ready in a perfect world, but I would still play him as like most of them, he thinks about his game, can adapt mid-game and will always put in a shift. I do not know if manager is flexible enough for this, but maybe?
sorry one more long comment: Big problem here, is everyone thinking along the lines of WHU being top of the league and the team to beat, following on from bookies. I don’t think so.
If play best of U21s + best seniors suited to U21s style of play + Sorba Thomas… maybe more, club should aim to be in the top half only, come January. Then take it from there, get in more players if required/available, tweaking the team.
The rest depends on how nifty the manager is and how quickly he gets a settled team out there – a lot depends on NES and coaches.
In all pre-season games, as soon as the U21s come on, the style of play changes, the tempo increases and the other team chase the game more and I think they regularly create chances in front of goal, I think. So for me, that’s the way to play & you select the right players to implement this style as well as building for the future, instead of always praying for good recruitment and team transformations. Don’t know if manager up for it.
Forget about buying Premier League ready players. We are not a premier league team. We were not a premier league team last season because we got relegated. Buy players who will play for us in the Championship and then if(when) we get promoted, buy better players.
In the past we’ve had to wait until the last week of the transfer window (apart from the ctazy 2024), because Sullivan was so mean.
Unless we want to pick up players that are only ever good whilst we remain in the Championship, this season we are going to have to wait to see which players dont get offers elsewhere, to buy in the last week.
For the moment, let’s all be patient and concentrate on keeping last season’s players we want to keep — Dinos Taty Diouf etc
We buy our season tickets for the whole year, not just August
Adingra is a player who is in the lower league of prem quality, might be more realistic than we would think depending on his position towards his future.
Though 100% agree we should be targeting players that are not yet known to PL clubs am not seeing anything from Koppen that suggests we are going to find untapped talent which is what the Brighton’s, Bournemouth and Brentford are so good at.
The close season is something I avoid, taking notice of facts only, not rumours, gossip, ‘ITK’ tip offs, leaks or general hyperbole. Column inches and internet sites need filling and it’s 90% nonsense.
The overriding fact is that at this stage we have a smaller, less talented squad than we ended last season with.
We have 19 days until our first league game of a long, arduous, defining season and with the exception of Lamadrid (does he count?) have signed nobody. We’ve retained our manager, captain and a couple of key players with others remaining in the ‘undecided’ category, again all conjecture.
Even should we kick our recruitment team into overdrive we have insufficient time remaining to bed any new players into the squad or tactical requirements even assuming their fitness is at an appropriate standard.
We run the very real risk of starting the season poorly, as by all accounts our current resources are familiarly slow and ineffective.
We may be playing catch up before we’ve even got our house in order and as we know from last season, that doesn’t always work out well. It appears we have collectively failed to learn the lesson of seasons gone by.
We needed our ducks in a row way before now to start this season from the first minute with dynamism and take the division by the throat.
Instead of this we’re looking over the wreckage of formerly discarded squad members wondering whether they ‘could do a job’. Kilman, JWP even Cornet have been mentioned, is this where we needed to be? The hope that youth will all come to fruition, butbwhat evidence has there honestly been of this actually transpiring or are our C&B goggles making potential first team regulars out of players not really up to the job. They’ve all had chances, loans etc, but none have really grasped the opportunity. Scarles, Potts, Kante, Ezra, Earthy, Orford all talked of in glowing terms, but are they REALLY the future?
Ill prepared in planning and execution again , let’s hope it doesn’t come back to bite us like last season.
If we manage to screw up this season, like last, it could be a very long journey back.
Negative, quite possibly. Realistic most definitely.
Its easy it will take 2 minutes do you want to come to a club in the championship no its over yes then try to do a deal easy don’t make it seem its going to take weeks