Let’s be honest now, if Jarrod Bowen is still wearing a West Ham shirt when we kick off in the Championship next season, pretty much everyone will be amazed.
We’ve heard it all this week. Manchester United are leading the race to sign him but his TV star missus wants her husband to stay in London because she is lined-up for Strictly. if you believe all that showbiz gossip.This while our beloved leader David Sullivan is trying to sell anything that isn’t nailed down because we need to raise a minimum of £100m to plug the ever growing black hole in our finances.
Not forgetting, of course, the glaring mismanagement that sees us left with a £104m debt, £200m to repay on transfers and a predicted £80m extra debt just around the corner. That added to all the lovely money that Premier League membership ensures we won’t get now. So no pressure there, then.
Exactly how many players will leave depends on what hysterical fan site you follow, anything from ten to 20 maybe. We need to slash our wage bill to meet EFL limits, rid ourselves of the £100,000 a week Premier League players while putting together a side and squad to hit the ground running in about eight weeks or so - some 70 plus days, if you are being picky.
And of course the obvious candidates for the exit door are our big name stars: Bowen, Mateus Fernandes and Cry Summerville. There’s a few more, but you get the picture.
For Bowen, there’s the issue of his career prospects. He’s approaching 30, has four more years of his West Ham contract and every reason to want to stay in the top flight.
At this point he is probably doing what every husband with a young family would do: put them first. I for one, would never be critical if he left. He’s carried us for some time now, is our second highest Premier League goalscorer and has given us everything.
The captaincy did weigh heavily on him. Relegation and missing out on the World Cup has been devastating. Like us all he’s hurting. It’s been an emotional roller coaster.
Since the drop was confirmed I’ve raged at VAR, laughed at Arsenal and Gabriel, lost patience with Nuno Espirito Santo and wanted him sacked and tried desperately to get away from football entirely for my own sanity. A few days in the Yorkshire Dales helped.
So if Bowen goes, it should be with our blessing and gratitude. The days when top players stayed after relegation are long gone. Folk have mentioned that Sir Trevor Brooking did just that in 1978 after relegation. The same applied to Billy Bonds, Alan Devonshire, Phil Parkes and Alvin Martin from that team.
Brooking even contacted the England manager, Ron Greenwood at time, and asked if playing in Division 2 would harm his international career. He was told it wouldn’t. But that was then, contracts and wages were different, no one had heard of Sky and the world moved on.
Not so now. Bowen has been devastated by his omission from the World Cup squad. And rightly so. England coach Thomas Tuchel has gone for Noni Madueke instead - and one of the reasons was that Tuchel thought Bowen’s form had suffered because of the situation at his club, while Madueke had benefitted from being at Arsenal (just three goals this season) while they were winning the title.
You can see how much that must have hurt, with Bowen’s 20 goals and assists last season in a failing team. The World Cup dream is over for Bowen, but he can without doubt finish his career in the Premier League with or without us.
Sensible advice is that he should go, stay in the top flight and look after his family at all costs. We cannot afford him now, however much fans plead for us to fashion a contract and wages to stay.
But Bowen and his agent will have known for some time when the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle or Manchester City can offer. But if Mrs. Bowen wants her husband to stay in London, so she can understandably continue her own career as well as run the family home with three young children, there’s a problem.
Chelsea, without even European football but with Xabi Alonso now installed as manager, seems the only option. The dilemma for Bowen is obvious.
Back at the funny farm, West Ham struggle and stumble on. The new season is just a couple of months away. Players must be sold, money raised. There’s even the fear of failing foul of the EFL’s financial rules, FSR it’s called these days. The EFL have been notoriously hard on PL clubs dropping into their competition with serious financial issues. Leicester and QPR spring to mind.
West Ham can only spend 85 per cent of turnover now. And when you look at the massive wages of the likes of Niclas Fullkrug and James Ward-Prowse—to name just two—the issues are obvious for Sullivan.
Which is why I’ve never really believed the claims of who the club want to keep, it’s pie in the sky. Sullivan will sell anyone if there are serious bids. There are nine players out of contract by the end of this month. I doubt any will be offered any new deals.
The likes of Axel Disasi have gone, his loan deal completed. The short term contract for Adama Traore—what a dreadful waste of money he was—is over, as is Callum Wilson’s one-year contract. There are as many as a dozen other senior players that we would sell.
Even the academy players are not exempt. If we sell a home produced rising star, that is all profit to go into the coffers. There are 12 youngsters with two or three years left on their contracts that will be the bedrock of our squad next season.
But we will bring in free transfers with experience and promising young players from abroad? All this overseen by Nuno, whose position, in my view, was explained last week. I wanted him out, but that’s not going to happen now. What do I know?
Since then we have lost our head of recruitment Max Hahn, one of the better appointments made by Tim Steidten. Max, it seems, tried to persuade Nuno not to sign Traore in January, to no avail. You are surely now seeing some of my concerns about the manager.
It seems now that our recruitment department is basically Sullivan, his agent pals Will Salthouse and Barry Silkman, with Nuno’s agent Jorge Mendes in the background. Oh, and we’ve also got Sullivan’s sons, David Jnr and Jack, taking a bigger hand in running the club.
They were described by one source recently as "running around thinking they are Txiki Begiristain". (The renowned former Manchester City sporting director.)
We are looking to appoint a Director of Football/Technical Director (pick your own title). Salthouse client Kieran Scott, now head of recruitment at Middlesbrough was suggested, but that seems to have gone cold. Who knows, otherwise Sullivan seems to have got the old band back together.
That’s the way it goes. The EFL starts, incidentally, on 14 August and we have to play in the first round of the Carabao Cup the previous weekend.
That’s all because eight Premier League sides will be playing in Europe next season and the Carabao has to be restructured to allow them to drop into the tournament at a later date. Meaning, we don’t get a bye in the first round like relegated clubs usually do. Hope you all understand that!
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