Clear parallels exist between the West Ham of Sam Allardyce’s era – more than ten years ago – and the owner v manager transfer tug of war that has started to play out in public over Callum Wilson’s rumoured impending arrival. Critics will be quick to say nothing has changed at the club who have defined challenges convincing players to join – more so with no European football and a modest 14th position-finish in the Premier League last season.
In an exposé today from tbrfootball.com, former Champions League winner Ryan Bertrand confirms he almost joined West Ham United but was put off by the circumstances:
“Bertrand spoke about how he almost signed for West Ham at one point in his career. The left-back says West Ham’s owners wanted to sign him, but Sam Allardyce wasn’t so keen as he’d just signed Aaron Cresswell from Ipswich. Ultimately, Bertrand found this situation strange and he ultimately rejected the chance to join West Ham.
Said Bertrand: Allardyce was there, and I think he just brought Cresswell from Ipswich. But then the owners wanted to bring me in. I don’t want to be that guy where the ownership brought me in and the manager’s like, I’ll play him, but I just brought my guy in,” Bertrand added.
“It was just weird.”
Bertrand encapsulates the ‘weird’ transfer situation that exists at West Ham with an owner pushing his own ‘picks’ whilst the manager pursues another agenda. You’d think after the mismatched, lop-sided squad West Ham ended up with last summer with three individuals – owner, manager and technical director – each having their own pick, lessons would have been learned.
But the depressing reality is that the process goes way back to July 2014. And it’s still alive and well today.
In that instance Allardyce was right (never thought I’d say that)
If this Wilson transfer goes ahead Then I wont renew my ticket Give it to the tourist why dont you We have fallen light years behind the likes of Spurs Arsenal Fulham and the like I feel quite ashamed of my club right now A million miles away with the love and passion I grew with at Upton Park I have lots of friends who follow Birmingham City and the same thing happend to them I WONDER WHY WHAT IS THE COMMON DENOMINATOR HERE
Exactly, if Steiden had just been allowed to do his job without Sullivan and Lopetegui maybe we wouldn’t be where we are.
I thought Kretinsky had insisted on a Steiden because he could see Sullivan and Moyes kept screwing up transfer windows.