How does a club sitting seventeenth in the Premier League with a regular 62,000 attendance – this season anyway – hope to rise like a phoenix from its terrible position after forgettable performances this season.
Not by ‘raiding’ the bottom side, with the worst defensive record in the league, and a record lowest points tally, for FOUR first team members.
West Ham’s entertainment value has been woeful this season.
Reading between the lines – with what sounds like pretty dismal season ticket renewal levels, in what is clearly not just my opinion from comments made here and on other fan sites and channels, West Ham’s plans to pick up Kyle Walker – Peters, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Aaron Ramsdale and Tyler Dibling from the newly relegated Saints just reeks of rock-bottom ambition.
What kind of ‘performance miracle’ are the quartet likely to undergo, I wonder, to metamorphose suddenly into top-quality Premier League players. Either their attitudes were appalling at St Mary’s if they were under achieving or they just can’t cut it in a Premier League side: Either way, they’d surely just complete the job and drag West Ham one place lower next season.
As one contributor put it in an echo of what West Ham fans were promised with the move from Upton Park:” World Class Stadium, world class players” ? Not.
The policy of buying four – almost half a team- of relegated players is a recipe for mediocrity at best. Mind you, West Ham’s tried and tested and proven ability to bungle transfers gives me hope that they’ll find a way to cock up the acquisition of even these modest targets.
However, I am perfectly willing to keep an open mind. My words may come back and bite me this Saturday as the Saints visit London Stadium and the quartet have ample opportunity to put on a show in front of their rumoured suitors. Stranger things have happened.
Having seen West Ham relegated with a team with the likes of Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe, Michael Carrick, Glen Johnson, Trevor Sinclair, David James, Freddy Kanouté in it. I don’t look at relegated teams and say all the players are rubbish because football is a team game and it doesn’t work that way. As Trevor Brooking was living proof of every relegated team will have at least a few players who are too good to be playing in the championship.
Dibling is class. Harwood Bellis loads of potential. KWP on a free is a no-brainer. Not convinced about the keeper. Good players get relegated every year.
A great team can’t be bought. A great West Ham team has to be built. In order to build, the raw materials will come from many sources. Whether those sources are from relegated clubs or not doesn’t really matter. Just a year ago these relegated clubs were riding very high in the Championship. Their players were considered to be excellent. They haven’t become second rate, basement failures in the space of a season.
Our relegated teams of the 70s & 80s weren’t filled with failures. Bonds, Brooking, Devonshire and other legends weren’t hopeless cases to be discarded as we fell. So acquiring talent from Ipswich, Southampton and even Leicester may not be the cheap, uninspiring options of mediocrity as described.
COYI
It’s incredible where the club was competeing in Europe and giving most teams a decent game compared to now.
The steady running down of the squad by Moyes relying on a too small group of aging players with his inactivity in transfer market and/or buying rubbish.
Then followed up with the Lopetegui disaster losing all vision and direction adding lots of dead wood squad players.
Now we have some good individuals and a mish mash of not good enough and too old players.
No indications Potter is the coaching genius we need to rescue us yet and the squad is more of a mess than I can remember for a long time.
This doesn’t seem like a one summer transfer window ( and season ) transformation job even with a lot of money, but without big money? It’s tough to turn round a couple of seasons of run down in squad quality quickly . Hopefully I’m wrong.
I absolutely agree the sentiments of the article. Our chairman is back driving transfer and doing what made him rich by concentrating on bargains. Successful football teams buy on quality which is why Sullivan is most unsuited for the role of leading pro football transfers.
Someone needs to tell him that his leadership is why we are still struggling to do well……
I will admit four seems excessive but I believe they are players that a number of top teams are looking at and I remember moaning about getting a player who I said relegated with WBA and then relegated with Watford , what’s he going for the hatrick ? Who was that ? Craig Dawson and I can remember that when Laurie Lesley broke his leg we got the reserve goal keeper at Luton who was . Jim Standen.
So you never know.
It’s pathetic….on about getting rid of kudus paqueta soucek…and call it a squad overhaul….and buying soton players means it’s all about money 💰..back to a selling club …..
Like alot of fans now …new owners are needed we have tried everything else and these clowns get 65 k a week at the stadium and like you say our ambition is pathetic…..the choices the board make especially with transfers is truly hard to believe ……Ramsdale 🤣🤣🤣he is fking awful and I mean awful …kwp is the only one worth it….this club will get worse before it gets better ….all the news leaking out..they say one thing but really it’s about money they don’t want to spend…..how can you replace players like kudus and paq….just by Getting rid of them shows they have absolutely no ambition at all …..you can’t replace players like that and if you do ..you have to pay upwards of 50/60/70 million……yeah let’s get some soton players that will sort it …tossers 🤣🤣🤣fk me
Money and Sullivan mate
No one seemed bothered about raiding us when we went down in 02/03.
The question you really have to ask is whether any of the players are better than what we have. Ramsdale I’d say is better than Areola, and I wonder if you’d complained a year ago had we signed him off Arsenal rather than Soton now?
Harwood-Bellis can’t be worse than the liability that is Mavropanos. I’d say KWP is an improvement on Coufal (who is leaving anyway so will need to be replaced). And as for Dibling we’ve got no chance there anyway. He will become a top player who will move to either one of the so called big 6 or Newcastle.
Ramsdale is awful imo …really awful..sorry
Apology accepted.
Still an improvement on our keeper. That’s how I’m measuring it. Not by what club they play for.
Going by your logic….bowen kudos ..spiderman..are not good enough for the top half of the Premier league…
We want more goal action and we’ll get it with these losers . If these four switch to Salthouse as their agent be afraid , very afraid . Westham will find a way to pay crazy high transfer fees as well , step aside Paqueta , Kudus , Bowen and Todibo , real talent for an avalanche of goals is coming .
I’m dissatisfied generally. This season was wrecked before it had even started frankly by clownery. We are our own worst enemies, others hardly need to be decent as our fiascos do the job for them.
C&H seem to be the only people suggesting we might buy four players from Southampton. As ever, you make up a story and then discuss it. I thought you professed to have ‘sources’ inside the club. Perhaps not any more.
Ramsdale is a quality keeper but the rest of the Southampton squad are no way good enough for the premier league. Why oh why are we even considering any of the outfield players is beyond me and yes I agree totally that it shows a real lack of ambition by the club owners and if potter is happy with that situation then he’s as bad as the owners . We all know that while Sullivan is in charge of the club nothing will change
They are the best players its others who are not good enough