West Ham United appointed Tim Steidten as our new director of football back in July 2023.
Tim Steidten arrived at West Ham with the reputation of being the football scouting ‘pearl diver’, due to his uncanny ability to unearth gems.
However, he hasn’t quite lived up to that moniker at the London Stadium, with both him and Julen Lopetegui currently facing fierce criticism.
It has actually been claimed that some of his signings have caused friction between him and Lopetegui behind the scenes.
The squad does seem to be incredibly unbalanced right now, with absolutely no power, pace or athleticism in the middle of the park.
The Hammers never seem to have a clear transfer strategy – everything always seems to be done in a real scattergun manner.
I though that had all changed in the summer, but it seems like I was wrong…
Worse than we thought at West Ham after new Tim Steidten claim
The German isn’t exactly the most popular figure in East London right now.
That’s mainly because of his insistence on spending £25 million plus on the injury prone and ageing striker Niclas Fullkrug.
In addition to that, his failure to identify the need for a powerful box-to-box midfielder really was a huge oversight.
However, now a new claim has emerged about the German’s influence on transfers at the club.
According to Sean Whetstone, a lot of different people were responsible for the summer signings at West Ham.
I have to say, this sounds crazy to me.
So the coach is picking players, as well as the director of football and the board? That will never work.
What should happen is the coach tells the DOF what style of football he wants his team to play, and highlight the attributes he needs in certain positions to help achieve that.
The DOF should then go out and identify certain targets for those positions and roles.
The final sign off will be from the board of course, because they’re the ones parting with the cash.
In no circumstance should different people be handpicking signings, because then you end up with a complete mish-mash of a squad that is full of individuals.
If I had to guess, I would say that Tim Steidten’s signings for West Ham were Niclas Fullkrug, Luis Guilherme and Jean-Clair Todibo, whilst Lopetegui was probably responsible for Max Kilman, Guido Rodriguez and Carlos Soler.
The owners, or David Sullivan more specifically, most likely facilitated the deals for Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Crysencio Summerville and Wes Foderingham.
Things are not right at West Ham right now, and the haphazard approach to transfers explains a lot, given our poor form on the pitch recently.
