By Gonzo
It was interesting to read the comments from Ex-whuEmployee in the column below, but not totally surprising. Ex has suggested that future Hammers recruitment will focus more on domestic based players due to the failure of some of West Ham’s more recent foreign signings.
Since November it’s been leaked that any potentially managerial replacements for David Moyes would need to have Premier League experience, so it’s easy to see why this policy would be broadened to include player recruitment too.
I find the whole thing a preposterous admission of our clubs inability to successfully scout overseas. However the solution to the problem is far worse than the actual problem itself.
If the article is true then the clubs answer is to give up. Rather than expand the scouting department and hire staff who have an encyclopedic knowledge of football overseas, West Ham are going to stick with buying from the Championship apparently.
Clearly it’s not enough to have one hand tied behind our backs and surrender advantage to our rivals whilst recruiting managers. We’re now going to overlook up and coming talent overseas rather than identify it.
Wilfried Gnonto has been a sensation for Leeds this season, but was plucked from relative obscurity from FC Zürich. West Ham should be actively searching for players such as this rather than closing off the possibility.
What of Declan Rice’s replacement? Moisés Caicedo is as good a choice as any to replace our captain but would cost at least £70m now. Brighton purchased him for £5m from Independiente because of good scouting and decision making. To deny ourselves the chance of buying foreign players is crazy.
Just when I thought our recruitment couldn’t get any worse at West Ham it appears we’re about to take two steps back and none forward.
I couldn’t agree more. If this does turn out to be true then it just proves how dismally managed this club is at all levels. Manchester City, Manchester United, Brighton, Brentford and (until recently) Liverpool have all done well with managers with no Premier League experience. Brighton & Brentford have done so on a limited budget with astute management & recruitment whilst regularly selling their best players and making an operating profit. So rather than look at promising and creative managers like Ruben Amorin at Sporting Lisbon or Will Still & Riems we would still go for Rafa Benitez as he has PL experience but is currently unemployed as there is seemingly no other interest in his services despite the number of managerial changes not just in the PL across Europe in general. You couldn’t make it up!!!!
This is the manager who signed Jordan Hugill. Every decent player he’s had he’s managed to drain the confidence out of them. And please don’t give Jarrod Bowen as a success story. His best ever season is 12 months ago. He’ll never do it again. He’s a headless chicken, one season wonder. The sooner Sullivan and Moyes as out of this club the better.