West Ham transfer news update

With less than 48 hours remaining of the January transfer window, it remains mostly quiet and we are not expecting too many surprises many will be disappointed to hear.

At the beginning of the window, Claret and Hugh explained that the cupboard was bare and that any inbound transfers would need to be funded by outbound sales. Nothing has changed in that approach after the club spent £90m last summer and are right at the upper limit of our FFP wage bill.

Sky Sports continue to talk about Maxi Gomez as signing in the next 24 hours but they have been saying that for over a week now, that deal is extremely unlikely and was mostly dependent on the sale of Marko Arnautovic to China before he signed a new deal with the Hammers. Celta Vido were holding out for a 50 million Euro payday and he is not available until the summer so couldn’t played for us anyway with his club fighting relegation.

There is a possibility of a late loan deal but it won’t be Youri Tielemans who is expected to join Leceister today from Monaco.

Beyond Samir Nasri who joined on a free transfer after completing his doping ban, there is unlikely to be any big surprises today or tomorrow.

I am sure West Ham will dress up Portugal U20 forward Mesaque Djú from Benfica as a big signing tomorrow but he is reported to be another free transfer and destined for the U23 squad so not a first squad addition but maybe one for the future like Xande Silvre.

The chances of Javier Hernandez joining Valencia and/or Lucas Perez joining Real Betis with no replacements in place are slim, the club have said they will not loan out players and need to line up replacements first before they allow any first-team players to leave.

The same goes for Pedro Obiang who won’t be allowed to join Fiorentina until a certain valuation is reached and a replacement is found.

One player who is available without replacement is Reece Oxford with the manager confirming this week he is free to go out on loan or be sold. Talk of £8m bids from Frankfurt and Nottingham Forrest are claimed to be premature and exaggerated in value terms but there is a small chance he could make a deadline day move with some German clubs interested.

The U23 squad are short on players due to existing loans and injuries so don’t expect too much movement there in terms of outbound loans.

The winter transfer window is likely to end as a low key affair with little to no movement by West Ham in the honest truth.

It is true that David Sullivan can be unpredictable with a last-minute surprise on deadline today with something up his sleeve but my expectations are low as it stands this morning so don’t stay up ;-).