West Ham’s cash-raising hopes aren’t great

West Ham‘s cash-raising cash hopes aren’t great this winter! And we may find ourselves relying on the persuasive powers of Tim Steidten as we look to buy and sell after his clever negotiations in the summer when bringing in Alvarez and Kudus.

West Ham’s cash-raising hopes aren’t great

However, I have remembered for over 50 years the words of famous former Hammer, Noel Cantwell, who was manager of Peterborough United when I started my football reporting career at London Road. Noel quite rightly observed: “Buying is the simplest job in the world – selling players can be very difficult indeed. That’s the real job facing managers.”

When one looks at those available to the Hammers following our source’s revelation yesterday that we needed to sell to make slots available in the squad it doesn’t look great .

Those we are considering have to be Ben Johnson who will fetch next to nothing in the last year of his contract and Conor Coventry to whom the same remark applies. Elsewhere we are looking at Aaron Cresswell, Danny Ings and most probably Said Benrahma if a half decent offer comes in.

He arrived from Brentford for around £30 million and let’s be honest such has been his form we will be lucky to get half of that. Ings might fetch us £3 or £4 million – another poor buy – and maybe around £5 million on the other three. Thilo Kehrer is probably another option at around £8 million whilst the club may be hoping to get the same for Fornals.

At best it is hard to see the Hammers raising much more than £30 million – £40 million should they get offers for all of them so it may well see the board will be digging into their pockets again.

Difficult times!

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