Try as they might, West Ham haven’t been able to bring any new signings through the door at this point, but they might not be too far away from a £10m-rated Premier League star if things go their way.
David Moyes must be tearing his hair out that bids have been rebuffed for every player that the Hammers have been going after this summer.
Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher, Fulham’s Joao Palhinha and Man United’s Harry Maguire are just three players that are believed to have been targeted, and none are yet wearing the claret and blue.
The issue may be of course that all of those teams, and any other, know that West Ham have money to burn.
Once the sale of Declan Rice was completed, the first tranche of money from the £100m+ fee would’ve been paid.
Clearly, West Ham would want to make the money stretch as far as it possibly can, but other teams can afford to bide their time, knowing that the closer we get to the start of the Premier League season, and the end of the transfer window too, the east Londoners will get more and more desperate and are likely to accede to paying a higher price for players than they’re will to currently.
According to the Daily Mail, there is interest in Everton’s lightning-fast winger, Demarai Gray, though they’ll have to beat off competition from Besiktas and Crystal Palace.
The Sun suggest Gray will be allowed to leave the Toffees for £10m, which won’t break the bank and will leave Moyes with money to spend.
Time will tell if the Hammers finally get lucky.
Before last season, we were threatening top six. What has happened to our ambition? The supporters could forgive a lot if we were signing young, hungry players and actually had a game plan of some description. But being linked with the likes of Maguire – who would cost a fortune in wages and is at the tail end of his career (so difficult to move on if he proves to be useless) – is embarrassing. A few weeks back we were being linked with Alex Scott at Bristol City – he’s young and a great prospect. And at £25m is worth a go. Seems to me that Moyes is more interested in safety first and only wants proven Premier players (even if they’re donkeys). After all this time, he still doesn’t get the West Ham way. We’re not interested in safety first. We’re interested in character and style (the two things are not mutually exclusive). If we don’t hit the ground running in the new season, Moyes will be gone by Christmas.
Big teams got better again. Other teams improved too.
We did win a cup though, I’d take that all day long over finishing 7th-8th.