It might still be November but West Ham are gearing up for the January sales early, in a bid to raise funds both to satisfy PSR and to free up squad places for ‘incoming’ January recruits. From various reports in the last few days, it is clear that Tim Steidten has been tasked with generating the income for Lopetegui’s transfer demands- our high ranking source has confirmed all along that the club has to sell to buy – that much is not news.
Reports today suggest that Lopetegui now wants to offload James Ward-Prowse as surplus to requirements. The Hammers midfielder is on loan at Nottingham Forest and has been pretty unspectacular in his season’s attainment to date. West Ham’s purchase price of £30 million is looking outrageous now: Would we recoup £20 million? I suspect Nottingham Forest aren’t interested in buying him so the market is limited and he hasn’t impressed anyone this season.
Maxwel Cornet’s loan at Southampton is -predictably-even less noteworthy and he too is reported as up ‘for sale’: That £17 million purchase again looks enormous and I can’t see West Ham generating more than £5 million for the out-of-sorts winger. Biggest problem is Cornet’s £60k weekly wage as he’d only get about £10k week in the championship, so who would buy him at present? Nobody. He’ll be boomeranging back to London Stadium in the summer unless the club get creative as they did with Kurt Zouma.
Nayef Aguerd is the only successful loanee – they think very highly of the Moroccan at Real Sociedad. Rumours link Aguerd with a step up to Real Madrid but West Ham deny any approach: More likely his loan will be made permanent in a back-room deal between the two clubs. At least West Ham should get some cash for him, even though it’ll fall well short of the £30 million-plus Moyes paid for him.
It’s been rumoured that ‘unsettled’ Niclas Fullkrug might be on his way, but at a massive loss to the club. It is difficult to see how £15 million incoming for the German might look like ‘good business’. More likely he’ll stay until the summer so West Ham can at least have a fair chance to assess what they paid so much money for!
So a whole host of ‘for sale’ bulletins are going out to agents in advance of the January window to raise funds for Lopetegui’s picks. I’m not holding my breath that there’ll be a whole lot of cash incoming from those ‘featured’ above. Enough for one £20-£30 million championship player like Jobe Bellingham if we are lucky.
The club have ‘U’ turned and now spread the word that Lucas Paquetá isn’t for sale under any circumstances. I do wonder about Mohammed Kudus, though, as I haven’t heard the same mantra used about the Ghanaian. And that £85 million would reshape the whole side. Then there’s ‘walking yellow card’ Edson Alvarez – could be a long shot to raise cash if he’s been deemed to have failed the Lopetegui litmus test.
January is normally a pretty quiet window- if West Ham do manage to transfer any players out – then there might be a flurry of activity nonetheless.
