West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur seem to be holding their noses and doing transfer business with each other after a feud between the two club chairmen prohibited any sort of contact in well over a decade. Now that both Levy and Sullivan have departed, the two seem prepared to trade players once again.
The two sets of fans, of course, revel in player misfortune once transfers have taken place – how West Ham supporters enjoyed Mohammed Kudus’ first season travails and then merely taking £85 million from the Spuds for the signature of Mateus Fernandes and doubling our money seemed sufficient cause for satisfaction.
Quietly banking about £20 million more than the young Portuguese would generate from any other club and heading off financial armageddon with north London money seemed a deal well done.
Spurs fans now have their moment, with the gloating evident over Manor Solomon‘s failure to launch in east London. The winger has struggled despite frequent starting slots under Nuno and must now be facing competition from young Edvin Austbø who has impressed each time he’s stepped onto the turf.
As Tottenham fan site Hotspurhq.com puts it:
“West Ham are saddled with Manor Solomon, who has scored just 2 goals with 2 assists in 14 appearances. The big problem with Solomon that Tottenham have been well aware of is that he is not a team player.
Spurs had to listen to a lot of complaining from him about his minutes or about mistreatment from the club, but the real reason why he didn’t play was because he never showed he was good enough.”
Solomon – there’s a man of the match in there lurking – but many doubt he can he return to that form once again
Identifying the problem as being specifically to do with his mindset rather than his ability, the criticism goes on:
“A big part of that is Solomon does not help his teams win. He holds the ball too much and plays like someone more focused on scoring or piling up his own stats than playing with the team.”
Early on this season, after his man of the match award, there was a feeling that we’d stolen Solomon for a very modest £4 million up – front: Depending on what a decent coaching regime can coax out of the Israeli, there may still be room for quiet satisfaction.
He has the record and the ability, but needs to find a way to return to his best form. When in a Leeds eleven, he looked a top quality prospect indeed and along with Joel Piroe scored 29 times, playing no small part in taking the club back to the Premier League.
Much like his new manager, he’s done it before and knows what is needed. The jury is out as to whether he’s still got it.