By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
West Ham’s summer player sales have now reached an incredible headline value of £200million following the agreement to sell El Hadji Malick Diouf to Brentford.
The £40million package agreed for Diouf takes the combined headline value of four major departures to a staggering amount.
Mateus Fernandes went to Tottenham for £85million, Crysencio Summerville departed for £65million and Freddie Potts was sold to Club Brugge for £10million.
Add Diouf’s £40million package and you arrive at precisely £200million.
And that’s before factoring in the £3million loan fee for Aaron Wan-Bissaka or the substantial wage savings created by departures such as Niclas Füllkrug.
£200m Is Only Impressive If West Ham Spend It
On the face of it, that’s some quite extraordinary transfer business.
But selling players is only half the job.
West Ham have so far spent less than £30million on Arne Engels, Manor Solomon and the loan fee for Joel Piroe, while the squad remains desperately short in several areas.
Nuno Espírito Santo has already publicly called for more attacking options, and the sale of Diouf now creates another obvious position requiring attention.
So the question has to be asked: when are West Ham going to start spending some of this money?
Engels cost West Ham £22m
There is also the unresolved situation surrounding Daniel Křetínský and the proposed investment which was expected to accompany an increase in his West Ham shareholding.
That deal has still not materialised.
I’m certainly not suggesting West Ham are selling £200million worth of footballers because Křetínský’s investment hasn’t arrived.
But until the club starts reinvesting significant amounts, supporters are entitled to wonder exactly what the financial plan is.
Don’t Replace Potential With Journeymen
My bigger concern is the profile of player being sold.
Fernandes, Summerville, Potts and Diouf were all young enough to improve while retaining significant resale value.
West Ham cannot continually sell players with high valuation ceilings and replace them with footballers approaching 30 who have little or no sell-on value.
That’s why I’d much rather see the club target young, quick players with room to develop than simply fill the squad with journeymen.
The same applies at left-back.
Ezra Mayers performed very well against Southampton last night, which is hugely encouraging.
But one excellent Carabao Cup performance from a youngster cannot suddenly mean West Ham don’t need to replace Diouf.
And spending some of this money on another player with genuine potential makes far more sense to me than simply deciding Reiss Nelson will do because he’s available.
West Ham have done incredibly well to generate headline transfer packages worth £200million from four players.
That’s impressive.
But now comes the important bit.
Go and spend some of it.
I don’t think West Ham fans appreciate the difficult situation the club found itself in. Burnley and Wolves started planning for a season in the Championship back in January. West Ham didn’t know what division they’d be in until the end of May. Then factor in the massive debt which is not the fault of the current board but of Sullivan, the huge wage bill and the fact West Ham had several players wanted by top teams unlike Burnley and Wolves who had just one or two such players. So many players have left but West Ham look like they are keeping the most important players Bowen, Mavropanos, Soucek and Taty. Clearly we never had any hope of keeping Fernandez and Summerville. The club are right to sell Todibo, Diouf, Alvarez, Fulkrug, Magassa and AWB because it’s very important to not have unhappy or disruptive players in your squad as that impacts results. I think the club have done some good business and they just need a couple more signings which I’m sure they will do. No other club in the Championship has had a harder job this summer in dealing with such a huge turnover of players. I will judge when the transfer window is closed and look at the results after that.
hear hear James x
I disagree that West Ham have to spend a lot of the money received and they need to bring in many more players. If Golambeckis is as good as Nuno thinks he is then they don’t need another centre back. If there is an injury Veltman can play centre back as he has in the past. I think West Ham certainly need a left back as Scarles needs dropping. Apart from that one more forward option from the bench should do. Pep Guardiola once said the ideal squad is about 18 and I agree with him. If you have players that are good enough they can play in a number of positions. Pep also said formations are like phone numbers and again I agree with him. If you control the ball (as West Ham should in this division) and the players are good enough then formations are largely meaningless apart from the basics of course. I think in this division West Ham have players like Veltman, KWP who can fit in along the backline and then the attacking players who can play a variety of different positions up front. I think what Nuno and Koppen both understand is the most important thing is having a team. That is why they are happy to see the likes of Diouf, Todibo, Alvarez and Magassa leave because what’s the point in having players that aren’t happy? If you have a squad with unhappy players it shows in the results. What Nuno and Koppen are going for is a tightknit group that are happy to be at West Ham and are hungry to prove themselves. If I am right about Nuno and Koppen and these kids are as good as they seem I predict West Ham will achieve automatic promotion and the Charlton result will be a distant memory at the end of the season. You often get results like that at the start of the season before the transfer deadline when a squad is not settled and new players are like strangeres in the opening games.
I can’t help but think I don’t care about the age of our players this year. As long as we get promoted. We can worry about the utopian ideal model thereafter.
One of the bonuses of engaging older players is that they are on shorter length contracts.
COYI
Sayers was his normal average and not composed on the ball. Bit like Scarles. Neither are first team. Not the first time he’s been bigged up and bang norm. I like the tall Gol’ next to him. Orford continues to shine and Ajeti is showing he might be one for the future but please let’s get some proven Championship players in defence and wide. We fail to do that we aren’t going up, end of.
I agree with Dudley 100%.Others can say what they want but the fact is you need to live in reality. The club lost 100M last year, has a huge wage bill and some useless immature young men on their payroll. You can rightly state the the club is huge with 62,500 attendance but that should be balanced with the fact we have lost the revenue from the estimated 1.8 billion people worldwide that follow the EPL.I think it is becoming clear that the philosophy is to get us out of the championship ASAP and then worry about the suitability of the players for the ELP later. This would be a nice problem to have come the end of this season. Do not underestimate the seriousness of what is going on with the finances of the club. It could affect us for years to come.
I think the transfer window has been somewhat of a small success. The Steidten era flops are all going, just Todibo and Alvarez to go. The ‘oh I’m not playing in the prem’ sulkers like AWB and Diouf etc are gone. Summerville and Fernandes was necessary for financial reasons. The players bought in want to play for the club and can see it in their attitude on the pitch and with a bit of time will gel nicely. Now it’s time to turn this small success into a full on success and get the right players in to fill the gaps. Nuno came in under difficult circumstances with the way club was being run and the squad he inherited. Yes he is mind boggling at times, but we are starting to see a reset and hopefully he can start to bring the somewhat success he had with wolves and forest given time. Just to add, Lewis Orford is looking the dogs goolies in midfield. A strong season playing regularly in the championship could help him develop into a special player.
CB, LB and a recognised CDM or we dont get promoted imo
Add another striker to that and am with you. Jury’s still out on Solomon as well given he is so one footed, so another winger and then Nuno would have no excuses with the options available
I agree , we need pace all over the pitch let’s get the younger players you know 21-24 with some experience. Defence is a major concern we need a boss in there
Are people forgetting that we owe £190m in transfer fees, lost £100m last year and revenue is expected to fall by a £100m this year. That £200m isn’t going on players.
Then we start a gruelling campaign with 17 genuine senior outfield players – take two off for Alvarez and todibo and you’re left with 15.
That ain’t enough to sustain a promotion push in the championship. We’ll need to sign and take the operating hit, then the problem ‘IF’ we return to the prem, is are we going to have a squad capable of competing? other clubs have surpassed us ages ago. We were one of those clubs splashing big money for years hoping that the players would work out, whereas other clubs (Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth) were shrewd in the transfer market and had a plan.
I know it’s often a throw away line supporters use when it’s not going right, and it might change, but I don’t feel like this is a cohesive team, it feels like it’s a bunch of whoever’s left at West Ham. I don’t feel like I know these players only a handful have been here even 2/3 seasons. It’s worrying.
I for one are fed up with these childish overpaid prima Donna’s throwing their teddies out of their pram and refusing to play. They conveniently forget it is their inadequacies on the pitch that put us in the championship in the first place.
This together with the board lies about not needing to sell, leaves me with little hope. If they do actually spend any money on more than two-bob players, I hope at least they build suitable clauses into contracts that leave them significantly out of pocket if they do down tools in the future.
on top of paqueta in January, the number of senior players that have left in 24 months is staggering and no way to run a stable football club.
The club should now be debt free.
To say that this is not down to the board issues is hiding from the truth.No one is in charge, no one will invest whilst negotiating a share price, why would they.
This issue has been created by Sullivan and Gold and Brady. They put the structure in place to make sure no one could get them out.
I remember the board reassuring us that the boardroom changes would not negatively affect the transfer budget
It’s amazing how a club like Brentford are spending 40 million pounds on one player. When we are scratching around looking for five million pound and freebies How times have changed. Well done Brentford coming up through the lower leagues We’ve gone backwards SHAME ON YOU W HAM
Totally agree. 3 clubs in the premier league i really admire and don’t mind admitting, I’m a tad jealous of. Brentford , Bournemouth & Brighton. Constantly buying gems at a low cost and then selling them on for huge profits while still doing well in the prem.
That’s what Koppen was brought in for but seems he’s lost his mojo.
Money going out the door for nothing.
Even players he’s suggested, Daniel Job/Edvin Austbo, have been bypassed.
Who is actually making transfer decisions.
Don’t consider Engles took much searching and hardly a bargain basement price.
Nelson or Austbo what kind of a stupid question is that.
Sorba Thomas, versatile and top championship scorer_£8m, is there any job vacancies.
We have one of the highest incoming sales for a club in a transfer window, as well as selling 50k + season tickets. Where is this money going, in Kretinsky and Sullivans pockets, thats where. We should be buying championship established players, or players who are almost prem league ready, so we are prepared for a possible promotion. This smells of more loans and journeyman on deadline day!! Fans will start to turn if this money isn’t invested.
So what’s going on in the boardroom has stalled west ham from buying players but amazingly the same boardroom has no problem selling players.
Supporters being taken for fools again.
They have spent some of it, which your own article says. The idea is to get promoted back to the PL without filling the squad up with Championship capable players who won’t cut it in the PL. You also want to clear the massive imbalance we had in transfer payments we were committed to pay out and those coming in. That we’ve done, there isn’t a 200 million pot of money waiting to be spent on transfers. Then, when you get promoted you take advantage of the clean slate to buy PL quality players and compete on PL wages for new players. So what you do now, for this season is try to get decent loan players in. We’ve just done that with Mubama. Rinse and repeat. Plus, and this always get missed, save money for the winter window. We will get long term injuries.
At last, somebody on this site that don’t spout drivel 👏
A very sensible comment which I fully agree with. I still feel we are one or two short but certainly, as you say, pointless spending money on players who won’t cut it in the Premier League. Certainly when most of the current bunch couldn’t
Dudley
Absolutely agree with everything you have said. Also premier league quality players would not want to join us right now. We need to see if this squad of young players are good enough to compete. If they can get us promoted then we will need to spend significantly on players with premier league quality players so it makes sense to keep our cash reserves and see how we do. Tremendous credit must go to the youth team coaches who have produced a great crop of players.
Musaka are you a west ham fan?
Unfair article TBH ok for a start last season as a club we made an operating loss of over 100 million so firstly we needed to balance the books. So on the face of it i would say we have done very well with the sales while still trying to have a decent squad for competing this season, The priority is now left back Scarles is very good back up but we need a new LB also a right winger every other area we can cover but if Todibo goes a CB will be Needed also. The kids need a chance and dropping down a divsion will hopefully offer up those chances and maybe we can reap massive rewards and savings.
Totally agree with you Gonzo. us going after Nelson is ”PATHETIC” when all he is is a 3 million ”BENCH-WARMER” who’s an injury-liability. when we could bring in the 21 yo Austbo well-fit and supposed 2 be really rapid. some have said quicker than Summerville.
Whoever made the final decision on Nelson over Austbo needs there head read. C O Y I’s
I wonder if dk is the country the most important week of our season
3rd Septmber_We tried.
Squad already light and a few injuries (Bowen etc) will cause big problems.
May have to look in Father Christmas sack to see what is around in January.
RIP West Ham