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.