West Ham Are Completely ‘Spent Up’ says Sean Whetstone in his earlier piece for Claret and Hugh today, confirming that West Ham don’t have the budget to bring in new players in January. Which means if West Ham are set on meeting Lopetegui’s demand for a new striker then the funding for this purchase and the wages for the player can only be found from selling an existing player.
Remember there are two requirements for the club to balance now, staying within profit and sustainability rules and stay within the wages-to-income ratio demanded by the Premier League.
Our current squad is still short of a couple of players so on the face of it, selling a current squad member looks risky. Of the former first team guys out on loan, James Ward-Prowse and Maxi Cornet are having mixed success: Cornet in particular is making little impact. Ward-Prowse on the other had is part of an over-performing team currently in seventh place in the Premier League and apart from his ‘goalkeeper dive’ that earned him a second yellow card has been well received by Forest.
So, selling him would free up much needed capital to fund striker purchase. We’ll never achieve the crazy £30 million which Moyes paid but at anything close to £20-25 million he’d probably be a good buy for Forest. There could be a deal to be done there in January that’d bring in a decent fee for the transfer kitty. He will already have had some £6 million of his price amortised in the books by the club so £25 million would be an acceptable ‘book’ price to sell.
Nayef Aguerd said goodbye to the fans when he left on loan: I’ve commented before that his good-bye’s to the fans at London Stadium didn’t come from a man who thought he would be coming back at the seasons end.
His loan has been going remarkably well, he’s been lauded as a very high quality defender and I’m sure Real Sociedad would be in the market to make his move permanent at something around +/- £20 million. Again far less than Moyes paid – a recurring theme at our club – but if either one of these two could become permanent deals then the funds would be available for a modest purchase although by my schoolboy maths that Aguerd sale price would add to the ‘loss’ column in the accounts by £2-3 million.
Tim Steidten and the team will already be sounding out the loan clubs for all of our loaned-out Hammers, looking to bring in cash where possible to fund the last couple of pieces in the jigsaw puzzle for Lopetegui. I don’t believe all the stories we hear that the Hammers are tracking various strikers are untrue – so plans, I’m sure, are afoot.
