It’s finally over - the most traumatic, extensive transfer window in West Ham’s history as new head coach Julen Lopetegui stamps his name on the club’s future.
Director of football Tim Steidten has his fingerprints over everything. Two decades ago he would have had a Filofax bulging with phone numbers under his arm and one of those brick mobiles in his top pocket.Now it’s just his mobile and endless contacts that have made things happen but in all this turmoil, you would doubt anybody has arrived to join JL’s squad that he didn’t want. And that’s not always been the situation in the past.
The transformation from David Moyes’ squad has been dramatic. If you want to be spiteful, it looks almost like a cleansing of the Moyes legacy, the one that produced three seasons in Europe, a European trophy and three top nine finishes. That legacy.
And with these changes there has been the break-up of our latest European champions, pretty much half of that match squad in Prague has gone in the 14 months since the Europa Conference League glory.
It started, obviously with the exit of Declan Rice, but this summer of transformation has seen a steady exit of Moyes’ legacy.
On transfer deadline day, though, the player who was signed after Prague but has been shown the door brutally by JL in a matter of weeks, that has caused the most concern.
James Ward-Prowse, now on a season-long loan at Nottingham Forest, no option, has been shown the door, seemingly to provide the squad place and finances to bring in JL’s choice of Carlos Soler on loan, with an option from Paris St.Germain.
It has split the fans. Some feel he did not offer much more than the set-piece expertise that Moyes wanted. But surely he was more than that, and half way through last term he was being talked of as a serious contender for England.
For West Ham he had more touches of the ball, more pass completion, created more chances and more assists, 11, than anyone else in the squad. Second in carries, progressive passing and passes in the final third. OK, he failed to score that expected 30 yard free kick, but he was a critical part of the side.
Soler is a class act, a cultured, technically excellent international who can operate in a variety of midfield roles. And he’s the managers’ choice, just like Max Kilman was. Let’s hope he’s as big a success as our new kingpin defender.
The removal of Ward-Prowse, Kurt Zouma, Maxwel Cornet and Nayef Aguerd – all on a variety of loan deals — from the payroll (and if we pay half their wages elsewhere which seems likely), that frees up about £180,000 a week to make incomings possible in a market where financial rules, well rule.
But there was still no new striker and no additional centre back, considering the departure of Aguerd and Angelo Ogbonna.
It suggests that classy youngster Kaelan Casey, who had a crack at the first team at the end of last season, will find himself on the fringes of that central defensive group. He was due to join Wycombe on loan until Aguerd's transfer to Real Sociedad was rubber-stamped. Along with Oliver Scarles snd Lewis Orford, these look like the rising stars JL will be looking at this term.
But it is the significant end of what will be a famous European squad - when folk look back on the Moyes era - that deserves recognition.
West Ham have fielded well over 1,200 players in their history and only 25 of them have figured in the two European trophy winning finals. And the changes in the transfer market and the longevity of playing squads from 1965 to 2023 has never been more stark.
Back in 1965 at Wembley there was no substitutes and just 11 legends; and only two-goal, match winner Alan Sealey and goalkeeper Jim Standen who did not come through the ranks from youth football at Upton Park. Sealey joined from Orient and Standen from Luton, having started his career at Arsenal. The rest were home grown.
When the dust has settled on this window, count how many home grown players will figure in JL’s 25 squad for the Premier League season.
And the boys of old stayed around. At the end of the 1966/67 season, ten were still at the club, along with Johnny Byrne who missed the win over Munich 1860 with injury. By the end of 1969, five were still on the books.
Now squads are much bigger. In Prague we used three substitutes and nine more were on the bench. Of the 14 who got on the pitch that night, seven have already left us. Their names, in decades to come, will be as revered as the men from 1965.
Ogbonna only got on in injury time, but celebrated like the fans. There’s a lovely picture of him with the trophy. He gave us nine years of wonderful service and I’m sure we all wish him well now he’s joined Watford.
Whether you fully appreciated Said Benrahma on not, he still scored a priceless spot kick that night, one of only five players to have scored in a European final for West Ham. Sealey with two at Wembley, Pat Holland and Keith Robson in the losing final against Anderlecht and Jarrod Bowen and Benni in Prague. All with a special place in our history.
The massive boys from Prague all. But these days players are gone quicker, such is the demands of the current game, with suffocating financial rules and the desire for an ever-changing squad strength, here today, gone tomorrow.
We can all laugh at Chelsea, with 45 players and the need to get rid of 25 in a matter of weeks. But West Ham are in the same boat. You bring in eight, nine, ten players and there has to be consequences. Upwards of ten of our squad have been in the firing line as we have to reduce wages and balance the spending.
I’m not one bit sure that any of this adds to the game, or improves it. Profit and sustainable rules say we can lose £105m over the years, or you get punished like Everton, Leicester and Nottingham Forest. Those chancers at Chelsea have now been told they cannot run through the books the sale of their hotel to another part of their organisation.
Who could have guessed that piece of sharp practice would have been outlawed. "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" goes the phrase from a Walter Scott poem. He didn’t mention dodgy nine-year contracts, or sleight of hand hotel sales, but he would if it had been going on in 1808. (And yes, I’ve had to check all that before you ask.)
I doubt Steidten has ever heard of Walter Scott, he’d probably try to buy him if he did. He’s been in for everyone else.
Upwards of a dozen players have left, plus five released from the Academy and eight promising youngsters out on loan. And that includes five of our FA Youth Cup winning side of 2023.
The work Mark Noble and Kenny Brown are doing carefully plotting this exceptional group’s futures is creditable. Their success prompted the constant crescendo from fans to "play the kids" last season, and that, in my view, would have been premature, a disaster even. The gap for 17 and 18 year-olds and the Premier League is vast, as is the physical and mental side the challenge. Very few of that age get regular games in the top flight, unless you are very, very good.
It’s just too easy to say, play the kids. Does anyone seriously think that if these lads were up to it, Moyes wouldn’t have played them? A manager who blooded Wayne Rooney and Ross Barkley at tender ages?
Only one of the 13 players who won that final against Arsenal have left the club, Divin Mubama now at Manchester City. I’m told from people close to the Academy that there was no clamour from the professional staff to promote these kids to the first team last season, they were not ready then, clearly.
Let’s see what a season on loan will do for the likes of George Earthy, Gideon Kodua and Callum Marshall, plus the older lads Freddie Potts and Mike Forbes. All of the other lads from that team have had contract extensions, so this is a key season for them all.
All that has very little to do with Lopetegui, nine big name signings have arrived plus four youngsters added to the youth set-up. About £150m has been spent and about £46.80m incoming. Now we all know by now that these figures can be manipulated, for want of a better description.
With PSR and its vagaries governing everything now, deals on long term contracts can be spread over a maximum of five years, Chelsea’s scam of nine year contracts has since been outlawed. Some of our new boys are on five to seven year deals, so you would take this summer’s initial outlay below £100m now. Thank heavens for Declan Rice for the rest!
Maybe it’s not how you start a transfer window but how you finish one that’s the key. Of course Steidten can do no wrong in many eyes because, well he’s not Moyes. Everything he’s touched is praise to the heavens by the same lot who spent so much time abusing Moyes until he left.
It’s not all been rosy, has it? There’s a free transfer third choice ‘keeper we are never likely to see, and four young goalkeepers, one on loan, have left to make way for Wes Foderingham. It has also opened the way for 18 year-old goalkeeping prospect, Finlay Herrick, to become virtually fourth choice having impressed JL in training. He’s played for England at Under 16, 17 and 18 and is clearly worthy of this chance to progress.
But there’s a Brazilian kid Luis Guilherme, who is a gamble and was expensive but hasn’t got near the squad yet while Mo Kante has been signed and loaned back to Paris FC. I’m not trying to discredit Steidten, but this level of hero worship is unhealthy to say the least. Let the man do his job, it’s amazingly difficult, before any judgements.
The last few days of this window, and this is not Tim’s fault, is that we have seen a desperate scramble to reduce wages and the ‘bully’ players out of the door that are suddenly no longer required. The window’s planning should not have ended like that, with Ward-Prowse being moved on like that.
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