Few can argue with the logic behind accepting a £40 million bid for a young player who came in a year ago for half of that price. Buying low and selling high is a blueprint for financial success which West Ham fans have not often seen.
Indeed the opposite has been the case in recent years with hundreds of millions of pounds wasted by paying inflated prices for players that flopped.
The list of shame incudes the worst of em’ all, Niclas Fullkrug, whose £27 million transfer fee and £90k a week in the Premier League cost West Ham millions for his three goal return.
Niclas Fullkrug – West Ham’s worst ever transfer?
Similarly paying £40 million for MaxKilman doesn’t look clever in hindsight with the defender’s value not even half of that amount two years on.
So the possibility of banking a £20 million profit for the still 21 year old El Haji Malick Diouf makes sense from every angle.
According to TalkSPORT’s Alex Crook
“Brentford expected to make a fresh bid for El Hadji Malick Diouf. Offer could be as high as £40m”
West Ham fans have seen the Senegalese youngster with all his good and bad points. Flip it and ask: Would we be happy buying him for £40 million? Not at all, I suspect. Error prone in defence, unsurprising for one so young.
Banking the cash, sending Diouf on his way to become a top player in about four years and reinvesting wisely is the key. With reports now suggesting that even £45 million might be attainable, the very clubs West Ham profess to admire – Bournemouth or Brighton are often mentioned by Claret and Hugh readers – have made themselves hugely successful by replicating the buy low, sell high model over many seasons. Irons’ supporters will have to get used to it.
Where Hammers fans won’t be forgiving is if the likes of Castellanos, Mavropanos and Magassa follow Diouf out of the door without sound financial reasoning behind their sales and a decent replacement coming in. Not merely free signings or players at the end of their careers.
Is Kretinsky sticking to his lofty promise that ‘financially West Ham don’t need to sell’ or is this simply more cash being siphoned off to pay debt, instead of the promised cash injection?
So, by all means, sell the player, bank the cash, but reinvest it wisely.
At the moment there’s every sign of the Hammers doing the former: But until supporters see the second phase – the ‘reinvesting’ element – carried out wisely there’ll remain the suspicion that this is an exodus by another name.
Seems clear to me, there are players who Nuno wants, players he doesn’t, players that want to leave, players who have offers too good to turn down and players not wanted but paid too much to find another club.
Just the usual chaos of relegation / end of season.
The key difference is no owner spewing out his agenda to ITKs and shooting himself in the foot
If investing wisely means not jumping in two footed for players this week just because Burnley away is looming, then that’s fine. I think we need to give them until the end of this month before we jump in on them. I’m skeptical but also hopeful. Lets see.
Not defending DK, saying that we don’t need to sell isn’t saying that we will not sell!
It is a negotiating tactic.
Business 101.