So, the transfer window has shut and yet again, West Ham fans are left wondering what the hell is happening at our club. Late break down in deals, broken promises and the arrival of a cheap alternative at the last minute, it’s a Sullivan special, but is it anything new?
Just like Carvalho in the summer, Dendoncker is the latest player who we could of got but due to time restraints on deadline day, we couldn’t get him over for a medical. Bloody deadline day, it’s about time they opened a transfer window that lasts a whole month to allow teams to get deals done. Oh, wait.
They have an awful track record of signings, they took over our club on January 19th 2010, they had 12 days to get some deals done, granted not a lot of time but how long does it really take to sit down with a manager, identify some targets and put some bids in? Anyway, we end up with Mido, Benni McCarthy and Ilan. That set a precedent for the next eight years. The transfer windows in the Championship window was the best we have seen from them in my eyes. They bought in some quality players for that level and a superb manager too. What they also done, was actually backed their manager in January.
You see, some people hate the January window, I’m not a lover of it, I personally think the window should shut at the end of August and remain shut until the following summer but that’s for another day. The January window can make or break a season and arguably, with the signing of Vaz Te, it made our season, he went on a goal scoring spree after his arrival from Barnsley and obviously scored the winner in the play off final on that beautiful sunny day in May.
But that’s as good as it’s got for West Ham and the January window. Pogatetz, Chamakh, Wellington Paulista, Emineke are some of the names we have picked up in the already depressing month of January over the years. Besides this years, there’s two other windows that irk me. The 1st, is the window of January 2015, we went into that January sitting 6th, two points off 4th, back the manager with serious funds and we could of made the Champions League places at best or at least a Europa league spot. We go out and get Doneil Henry and also Nene, who we actually got, on a free, in the middle of February. Big Sam gives up, we win three games from Christmas to May and we finish 12th, having accumulated 16 points from our last 19 games. Opportunity missed.
The 2nd window that annoyed me was the next season, the final season at Upton Park. Yet again, 19 games in, although we were 8th, we were only 6 points off of 4th. Goals was the main issue this time, too many games were being drawn, surely the answer would be a top striker to convert some of the insane chances Dimitri Payet was creating. Surely, right? Wrong. Our January business consisted of Sam Byram, and Emmanuel Emen-
ike. Granted, we didn’t have a disastrous 2nd half of the season, we finish 7th, but we were four points off 4th, with the goal difference, we basically needed another five points. One can’t help but think what might have been had we really gone and got a couple of really top players that January.
The reason we failed to strengthen in them windows is clear to me, the board don’t want to take us to the next level, they know that had we reached the Champions League, they would’ve had to have started spending some serious money on “next level” players and they don’t want to (or can’t) do that.
That takes me nicely onto my next point. The Europa League is perfect for the fans, the club and the board. It’s perfect for us as fans as we get to see our team on the continent in competitive action and the club increases it’s exposure to the world, giving us a chance of attracting a better quality of player. It’s good for the board, as the level of player required is not as expensive as those required at Champions League level. However, as our brief foray into the Europa League last season proved, they can’t even get that right.
Incoming transfers of Havard Nordtveit, Toni Martinez, Ashley Fletcher, Andre Ayew, Arthur Masuaku, Edimilson Fernandes and Alvaro Arbeloa was quite frankly, horrific. We had a good squad going into that season, we had a good chance to buy some better quality players, letting those 1st team players being replaced become our squad players, that not only improves your 1st team but it also starts to build squad depth which is vitally important. We didn’t, we seemed to buy players on the cheap side and just wanted to improve the squad players, that was the start of Payet looking for a way out.
Can anyone really blame him for that? He’s come off a superb EURO 2016 in his home country, he’s being linked with big money deals to some of the best clubs in Europe, he’s come back to West Ham, probably been promised the same transfers the fans have, only to see Andre Ayew rock up at Chadwell Heath. No offence to Ayew, but he’s hardly the sort of player that Payet’s gonna look at and think “yeah, this club is going places.
January 2018
Anyway, back to this window and the debacle it has been. We’ve been linked with countless players, Joe Allen, Tom Cairney, Leander Dendoncker to name just a few, but all these required a “hefty” price tag. I use the inverted commas as, what everyone else in football looks at as a going rate fee, our board see a high price and refuse to pay it. To sell nearly £30m worth of players in Ayew and Sakho and replace them with £12m’s worth in Hugill and the loan fee for Mario is criminal and it really does sum up the ambition the owners have for us.
Football is changing, clubs are bringing in astronomical amounts of money, that in itself dri
ves the transfer fee’s up. 22 years ago you could of got Ronaldo (R9) for £19.5m, that money these days gets you your average Premier League player, it’s just the way it is. Clubs are quick to moan about the transfer fees but are delighted to receive the big money from the TV rights and everything else. With our lot, it seems that their priorities purely lie with how much profit they can gain.
And that’s why, under the ownership of David Sullivan and David Gold, West Ham United will never move on to the next level in football. “World class football at a world class stadium with a world class team”
We can only dream.
This article was written by Lee and you can follow him on twitter here!