West Ham head coach Julen Lopetegui was not a happy man following the Hammers’ pre-season loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers. And it wasn’t just the embarrassment of losing to his former club that seemed to irk the new Hammers’ boss.
Make no mistake about it, a man as proud as Lopetegui will not like losing to Gary O’Neil, the man who succeeded him as Wolves’ gaffer. But he’d have been far more concerned about how lacking in quality his West Ham team were when measured against Premier League opposition rather than their first two easier pre-season opponents.
In his post-match interview, Lopetegui seemed to have grasped exactly why West Ham were one of the worst teams defensively in Europe last season, and it’s a problem that will clearly require more than just the signing of £40m Max Kilman to fix.
West Ham are in desperate need of players and need them now. The recent failures in transfer negotiations for a number of players are no longer important. The Hammers will need to start getting transfer deals done and may have to pay over the going rate to ensure it happens.
Breaking reports of a deal for Aaron Wan-Bissaka being close will go some way to appeasing Lopetegui but expect an additional central defender to remain a priority.
Having long lists for each position is precisely why we continually have to watch player hopping (and what appears to be a scattergun approach). If you have smaller lists you can focus more clearly. The key, of course, is getting a feasible but small list at the beginning. That work would include study of selling club, agent(s), player character, role fit etc before putting a name on a list. It would also help if consideration is given at the beginning to which rival clubs might be in for a player and whether WH can outbid them. Otherwise it’s just a game of click bait. I reckon WH has done most of the above but with too long lists and therefore loss of focus and irritated fans.
Sullivan blamed dithering Moyes, but it’s Sullivan who won’t spend the money, surely no one surprised at today’s result looking at our defence from last season. It’s not only the concern we are not buying anybody, the manager said we needed 8, but what happens to all the dead wood , ones we’ve said we don’t want but neither does anybody else, we are stuck with them & there wages. Laughing stock once again.
A basic strategy seems to be missing. Scouting department should have prepared a list with 10 names -including the hidden “pearls”- per each missing position (and should have done so a long time ago). Starting with player number one on the list, does his club consider selling him (and at what price)? Confidential enquiries should establish if the player is even interested in joining West Ham. If yes, submit a bid. In the likelihood that we start by underbidding -as seems to be the case- set a maximum date by which negotiations will end. Next accept that it did not work, and have the flexibility to MOVE DOWN THE LIST! As we go down the list, names will correspond to less ideal options, but there should be a chance to consider them before they accept to be transferred elsewhere. E.g. En Nesyri seems to have been such a case, he might have been of interest, but by now he accepted another offer -at a for WH affordable price- and now is not available to us anymore. We may not get a Kudus each time. (For top players, the club must be prepared to pay top price). Otherwise, after big delays, we don’t get the player. Time flies as search continues to find someone to fill the position. And if the deadline is not met the risk is to end up with the same reduced squad and a a lot of frustrations as the season unfolds.
Over the going rate is not on in these days of PSR, it lands you in trouble further along the line. The days are gone when people like Roman Abramovic had no intention of balancing books is what brought it about.
As the window progresses it becomes more urgent for selling clubs to move players on so they should become more flexible in negotiations.
Other clubs are in worse positions than we are as most are lower revenue, we have the seventh highest revenue, but what draws us down is that we have a lot of players to bring in.
Jlo now seeing the real way West Ham do business not the way i’m sure Sullivan led him to believe.I’d love to be the fly on the wall when Tim tells him why another targets gone south