West Ham’s director of football, Tim Steidten, is increasingly the subject of leaked articles about the club, all of which appear to be negative.
First, let me be clear: I am delighted that the Hammers appointed a director of football, and my early impressions of Steidten have been positive. For too long, West Ham’s recruitment policy appeared to be scattergun at best, and the club would regularly spend big money on signings that would invariably fail.
Therefore, it was important to implement a restructuring of the recruitment strategy at West Ham, particularly given modern financial regulations. There was a time when a football club could possibly get away with a £30 million signing not working out; however, FFP and PSR mean that every penny counts. Gone are the days when a our beloved Irons could haemorrhage money on the likes of Nikola Vlasic, Felipe Anderson, and Sébastien Haller.
So it’s fair to say that I was as buoyed as any West Ham fan to find out the club was going to be more studious and cerebral in their buying and selling. Steidten was appointed to the position of director of football and had to endure a diluted role during his first season, with former manager David Moyes reluctant to relinquish control of transfers.
A chance for Steidten to rebuild
Like many, I believed this season represented an opportunity for West Ham to have a clean slate on transfers, and the early signs looked promising with nine players recruited in the summer window. Unfortunately, the Hammers’ start to the season wasn’t as good as most of us had hoped, and that’s when the negative articles about Steidten began to be leaked.
The most recent revelations in ‘The Sun’ speak of an unhappy man who doesn’t feel backed by the club, both in terms of player recruitment and the selection of David Moyes’ successor.
It is, in fact, the third time within the past ten days that we’ve heard the German was unhappy with the appointment of Julen Lopetegui. An article last week went as far as to suggest Steidten had warned David Sullivan against appointing the former Real Madrid boss.
Steidten’s preferred method of leaks, Fabrizio Romano, has done little to extinguish many of the negative rumours highlighting Tim’s annoyance, which has added further fuel to the fire.
As a fan base, we are now thoroughly briefed and aware of precisely who our director of football wanted to recruit and who he didn’t.
How this affects the relationship between Steidten and Lopetegui is unclear. The two seemed happy enough to be photographed alongside one another when the Spaniard was appointed, and initial press conferences indicated they would have an excellent working relationship.
The timing of today’s revelations is poor; one can only assume the comments were made before yesterday’s victory against Ipswich, which alleviated some pressure on Lopetegui. The 4-1 victory was a massive relief following a week of speculation over infighting and dressing room unrest.
As a West Ham fan, it was heartening to see so many of our top players performing well and playing with smiles on their faces. The last thing the club needed was more negative sentiments attributed to a director of football who has featured too much in recent news stories.
Kill the rumours please Tim
Now would be an excellent time for Steidten to come out and use any of his numerous social media assets to put an end to this speculation.
He may well be unhappy at West Ham, and perhaps he doesn’t like Julen Lopetegui or others in the Hammers hierarchy. Possibly he also feels that he has not been backed to the fullest extent by the club, and for that, he would have genuine grounds for complaint. However, my problem is that too much of this is done in public.
Don’t believe the hype
There’s been far too much emphasis on what Steidten hasn’t got rather than what he has been allowed to do. To suggest he has not been backed by the club is a step too far. Perhaps he is not as omnipotent as he might wish, but he has been allowed to spend a considerable sum of money, is very well paid, was allowed to add his brother to the payroll, and has built a scouting department in his image.
At the points when that very same scouting department identified what they believed was the best young talent in South America, the club backed him and signed Luis Guilherme committing over £20m to the purchase.
If indeed Steidten is not the source of these far-too-frequent leaked messages, then he needs to come out and say so. To do anything less would be to allow rumour and speculation to further ferment, and whilst that might be good for his own self-interest, it is not a healthy situation for the club.