After the high of winning the Europa Conference League, there’s sure to be a come down for a few West Ham United players.
That’s because David Moyes needs to set about improving his Hammers squad for their Premier League and Europa League campaigns in 2023/24, and some players just aren’t up to the task. Not only that, but captain Declan Rice is also expected to move on to pastures new.
It can’t be forgotten that, until late in the season, the east Londoners were perilously close to slipping into the relegation dog fight, and to that end, improvements in the first team must be made.
Alongside Rice, there are five other players that are expected to depart the London stadium.
According to Claret and Hugh they are Gianluca Scamacca, Ben Johnson, Manuel Lanzini, Jamal Baptiste and Mipo Odubeko.
Much was expected of Scamacca, but in truth the Italian never really hit the heights for the east Londoners.
WhoScored note his paltry return of four goals, but a perceived lack of work rate and the belief that he went to watch Roma when West Ham had a Europa Conference League game to play on the same night are other issues that won’t have endeared him to Moyes.
Given the expected number of departures, it’s clear that the Hammers are going to have to work well in the transfer market in order to ensure that the replacements coming in are of sufficient quality to improve them rather than just being players to fill squad gaps.