There’s little over four weeks to go before the transfer window slams shut on 1 September and the reality of what we are and where we are has started to hit home.
Sunday’s uninspiring, goalless draw against Rangers showed to many fans what we are missing, what we need, and how difficult the Championship will be with this current squad of hopeful kids and the remnants of a Premier League relegation side. And it’s not pretty.The fans are getting restless. Fed up with being told it’s all in hand, there will be new faces and we are looking at players who could, in time play in the Premier League. Oh, and nobody has to be sold and if we do we won’t be bullied into taking cheap bids.
There is an element of wishful thinking, fantasy really, about all that. Whatever we say as a club, players and agents are not listening. If players want out they will go, nobody keeps unhappy players and agents are actively hawking our players around the market. We are not in the driving seat here, however much pie-in-the-sky PR is pushed out to tame websites.
Reality is biting. Nuno Espirito Santo is looking at Sorba Thomas from Stoke, a Welsh international with about the best goals/assists record in last season’s Championship. And some of our fans are turning their noses up at the 27 year-old, Newham-born player who started his football career in our Academy.
He was voted onto the Championship Team of the Year, that is about the level of player we should be looking at, I sense we need to get our heads around this current situation.
But we aren’t making it easy for ourselves. We have a new Head of Recruitment who has been plying his trade in the transfer hotbeds of Denmark and Scotland, and we now have had to bring in help in the shape of a Championship ‘expert’ Ben Chorley, formerly Southampton’s head of recruitment, as an advisor.
Sometimes it’s hard to make these things up, you’d have thought that level of expertise was a basic requirement of the job.
And our fans don’t help much either. We had some recently who seriously wanted us to go for John Stones, on a free from Manchester City. Stones was arguably England’s best defender at the World Cup, out of our league and off to Inter Milan. Why do fans seriously think we are in that market?
Some I suspect are still looking upwards at the transfer market and the PL deals going through, when they should start to realise that is now out of our reach. We are what we are, get used to it.
The likes of Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson are on the market and in times gone by would have suited us in our current situation. But they will still think they can play in the PL and Chelsea will hoover them up anyway. Nothing to do with increasing their homegrown/English quota, of course.
And I sense we need to shift high earners like Fullkrug, Alvarez, Todibo and probably Cornet, before we start signing new players. Or is that just me being cynical and not believing a word that comes out of our club’s mouth these days? I know that’s a bit sad, but they’ve brought this on themselves.
We are still working off the back of a shambolic transfer policy, the hangover from the Sullivan dynasty. Just go back one year to the summer of 2025.
Around 20 senior players have gone from the books, frees, some loans and half-a-dozen sales. From the point where Kudus joined Spurs we have pulled in £256m from the sales of Kudus, Summerville, Fernandes, Paqueta, Guilherme and Irvine.
Twelve players have arrived, some only fleetingly and a couple of loans, at a cost of roughly £143m. We have seen all our attacking flair stripped out and the profit on the year has wiped out the massive debt left by the Sullivan regime.
This summer the only ‘signing’ has been Keiber Lamadrid, the £1m fee making his loan permanent, with Nuno now trying to turn him into a central midfielder. That’s a work in progress.
The Rangers game exposed a lot for our fans, those in the 48,000 at Ibrox and the rest of us watching on the club feed, which for those with season tickets was free, as were the Southend and Stevenage friendlies. A far cry from the previous regime’s attitude to fleecing the fans.
There is a dreadful lack of pace, our midfield lacks concentration and cohesion and we need pace and quality down both wings. The back line and ‘keeper Mads Hermansen look pretty decent and have been steady and reliable, with youngster Airidas Golambeckis showing plenty of potential.
More than a few of the kids from the Youth Cup winning side, and the success of the Academy since, also did themselves no harm with committed performances. I do hope that the likes of Ezra Mayers, Lewes Orford, Joshua Ajala, Finn Herrick and Kaelan Casey find a place in the first team squad now and are not farmed out on loan. Preston Fearon and Ryan Battrum likewise.
But it’s up front where the problems are. I’m sorry, Pablo is not good enough or quick enough and we really should be looking to move him on. And I’ve never taken to Taty Castellanos. Too lightweight, I’m afraid.
Mind you it looks like he’s making the decision already about his future. Nuno has stuck with him and clearly sees him as a key part of the squad. But the Argentinian, having gone through all pre-season to get his fitness sorted, now wants to leave. Off you pop then, and it looks like Nuno has accelerated the search for more striker power. Now where have we heard that before?
All this with the backdrop of redundancies amongst the backroom staff. Hospitality, it seems has been hit hard and this week we hear that stadium announcer of 25 years, friend of KUMB Russ Budden, has been made redundant.
Russ also runs YouTube's West Ham Network and I must admit I enjoy his languid and entertaining news round-up each day in conjunction with KUMB.com. You have to wonder about the club’s finances if they have to save the pennies to this extent, although this decision had been made prior to David Sullivan's exit.
Still, it just seems another link with the good old days is no more. Good luck in the future, Russ.
And that brings us back to the boardroom issues. The reality is that David Sullivan is still the major shareholder on 38 per cent, the deal for Danny Kretinsky to buy some of Vanessa Gold’s holding has still not cleared the technical and legal hurdles. Is Sullivan holding all this up? That’s the allegation. Who knows?
As for his sons, they are still around, of whom was in the directors' box at Stevenage, so it seems. So the family are still with us, they will surely get a ’welcome’ from the home faithful at the League Cup tie with Portsmouth in a week or so.
And the reality is obvious. Kretinsky will not inject his promised £100m until he owns the club, he needs to get to 43 per cent before that happens. Why on earth would he pump in so much money while Sullivan still, technically, is the major shareholder?
We are assured by folk who understand these things that the share sales will be completed and Kretinsky will take full control. But will it be before 1 September to have any impact on this dreadful window? I fear not.
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