How Tim Steidten, West Ham’s Director of Football, must be feeling right now is anyone’s guess. Once hailed as the new transfer messiah, he now appears to be side-lined from most of his duties.
When Steidten was appointed, it seemed clear he was biding his time, waiting for David Moyes to either move on or be pushed out. That patience paid off when Moyes eventually departed, and many assumed Steidten would then take full control of transfer operations. Initially, he did enjoy significant freedom during the summer window, but that control now seems to have been stripped away.
Currently, Steidten appears relegated to a glorified scouting role, limited to recommending players while the ultimate decisions fall to Chairman David Sullivan. This shift is likely a reaction to perceived errors of judgment in the summer transfer market, such as the high-profile acquisitions of Luis Guilherme, Jean-Clair Todibo, and the injury-prone Niclas Füllkrug. Füllkrug, in particular, has failed to justify his big-money move, exacerbating the scrutiny on Steidten’s influence.
Uncertainty initially grew around Steidten following a botched attempt to sign Ibrahim Osman for significantly more than Brighton ended up paying for the Ghanaian winger. Osman, currently on loan in Holland, was in the midst of an agent wrangle, and West Ham reportedly ended up negotiating with the wrong representative—a fiasco that dealt a serious blow to Steidten’s credibility.
It’s difficult to imagine Steidten staying at West Ham for much longer. What once seemed like his dream role has devolved into something less significant than the position he held at Bayer Leverkusen.
Without the authority to sign players, it’s hard to see how the German can recover his influence. A parting of the ways now seems inevitable.
