I think it’s fair to suggest that if you were to ask the average football fan whether they think the January transfer window is a good time for their club to be conducting business and whether there is value to be found in the market that the majority of fans would reason quite simply that it certainly isn’t. January of course, is more akin to a window dominated by panic buys especially in the echelons of the large majority of Premier League teams who find themselves gripped by the fear of slipping out of the promised land of milk and money and into the Championship. For those wondering – that’s not a typo either.
One club who seem to signify best all that is wrong with doing business in the January transfer window more than most on an annual basis is West Ham United – though under the stewardship of current owners David Sullivan and David Gold a.k.a The Dildo Brothers, you could fairly level the same accusation at them for ‘both’ transfer windows and not receive many arguments against the notion.
If January 2017 was the month in which David Sullivan’s sons begged him not to sign Jose Fonte and Robert Snodgrass only to see him sign off on both deals, Lord only knows what was going on behind the closed doors of his crass Essex mansion 12 months later. Ever the self publicist, Sullivan announced two days before the close of the window that he was working around the clock on trying to secure deals for West Ham. Eventually 48 hours later and those deals saw the club splash out a reported £9 million on Preston North End striker Jordan Hugill (no me neither) and Oladapo Afolayan from non-league Solihull Moors. I’d for one be interested to know what Sullivan’s kids had to say about those two signings when in a few months time Sullivan no doubt gives another toe curling badly timed interview with the Guardian newspaper which sends the West Ham media team off to bang their heads against a wall for the umpteenth time.
Now not knowing much if anything about either striker you could argue that in signing a player such as Hugill who has played for Seaham Red Star, Consett, Whitby Town and Marske United amongst other teams, that Sullivan is hoping to unearth the new Jamie Vardy. His tally of 30 goals in 114 games for Preston North End would probably piss all over that theory but as I say, it is a theory and I doubt even David Sullivan truly knows what goes on in David Sullivan’s mind. Add to that the Afolayan signing and hey you’ve got two bites of the same cherry though the latter has gone into the Under 23 development squad where he will no doubt be sent out on loan, brought back next January for two or three games and then sent back to the same club a la the two Reeces; Burke and Oxford. Or maybe you may wish to the Billy Beane ‘Moneyball theory’ that both strikers have been signed because of statistics which neither you or me have been party to at this juncture but the club feel can be used to take the them to the next level as the clubs owners famously promised prior to their move to the London Stadium. Or could it just simply be the fact that Sullivan has proved himself to be fucking hopeless when it comes to not only transfers but the purchase of strikers in particular since taking ownership of the club. I for one suspect it’s the latter of the three options.
Now I will give some rare credit to Sullivan for managing to bring in the Portuguese midfielder Joao Mario in on loan from Internazionale. Having seen him play week in week out during his time at Sporting club de Portugal I can testify that in Liga Nos at least he looked a player of some quality. Skilful on the ball, his game management was equally as impressive and if we get the player that left Portugal then West Ham could find themselves with a genuine mark in the plus column of January window successes. With a place in the World Cup squad up for grabs it should hopefully prove to be a win / win scenario for both player and club going forward. The only worry for me is a lack of game time and match fitness having spent the majority of the season warming benches over in Italy having struggled to adjust to the systems deployed in the world of Calcio. Only time will tell on that one.
West Ham fans will surely have learnt by now that every transfer window will see them linked on average with 40 players around the world, 40 of whom won’t ever be signed by the club. Here’s a tip for all Hammers fans out there – simply go and live in a cave for the entire period of both transfer windows by yourself and then reappear into the world to find out who the club actually manage to sign and you will save yourselves a lot of anger and disappointment.
West Ham did manage to swell the coffers this past month however with Swansea City paying £18 million plus possible add on’s for Andre Ayew and £4.5 million with again possible add on’s for Diafra Sakho who went to Rennes and quelle surprise scored on his debut. Whilst neither player could be described as prolific goal scorers, how many West Ham strikers that have come in under Sullivan or Gold could be? Sakho’s 18 goals in 62 appearances gave him a goals to game ratio of just over 1 in every 3 and Ayew’s 9 in 43 a ratio of just over 1 in every 4 which Hammers fans will tell you – as poor as that might sound to fans of other clubs, for West Ham – that’s pretty good. Even better when considering both players have been on the fringes of the team the past 12 months under David Moyes and previous manager Slaven Bilic. It’s OK though to have sold what little goasl scoring prowess you did have because remember the Hammers now have Hugill and his record of a goal in just under every 4 games in the Championship. Actually some of those may have been in League One – I don’t know how long PNE have been in the Championship for now though I might add that quite frankly neither can I be arsed to check. Instead I’m sounding the sarcasm claxon for anyone who may have missed the subtlety in my writing ability there.
The worrying thing for West Ham fans this past month however surely has to be that on and off the pitch the headlines have read like they’ve come straight out of the pages of the Daily Sport. It’s hard to know where to start on what has truly been an embarrassing month for Hammers fans everywhere.
If the closing of the transfer window hadn’t been embarrassing enough with the club failing to buy a single one of the raft of world talent it had supposedly been linked with the headlines were grabbed by allegations that Director of player recruitment Tony Henry had told an agent the club wanted to limit the number of African players in their squad because some “have a bad attitude” and “cause mayhem” when they are not in the team. These comments coming so soon after the sad passing of Cyrille Regis if found to be true show that despite it being 2018, the game really hasn’t moved on all that much in some quarters since the 1970s. Rightly the club have suspended Henry pending an investigation saying it wouldn’t tolerate any type of discrimination. However it has been widely reported that the view was supported by members of the clubs hierarchy. The only thing that leaves an equally sour taste is that the story broke in the Daily Mail, a newspaper known for its racist undertones and who now appear to be trying to take a hypocritically moral standpoint on the whole saga.
I’d like to say that in the past few days this was the only chaotic thing to have happened on and off the pitch but unless you had been sat in a cave, you’d know it wasn’t. If being knocked out to League One side Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup 4th round wasn’t bad enough, Arthur Masuaku received a six game ban for spitting at an opponent following his sending off in the 2-0 loss. I’ve gone on record as already saying that whilst I don’t condone the action of the player for a single second, just how a player having to give his shirt to be washed by the club kit man can be rated as three times worse an act than Neil Taylor breaking Seamus Coleman’s leg in two places for example (he received a two game ban) is just fucking beyond me. On Monday morning anyone listening to Talksport would have heard self confessed Hammers fan and media pundit Ian Abraham’s rant about the incident making it sound like the player should have been given a six month custodial sentence whereas the Henry news was greeted by the same man with barely more than ten words strung together to form his answer just a couple of days later. All around from all parties concerned just fucking embarrassment as far as I’m concerned. Not enough pride or quality to beat a side two leagues lower than yourselves, an idiotic act of petulance from Masuaku, an overzealous ban which doesn’t fit the crime and a reaction from a footballer broadcaster which sounded like a two year old having a paddy after being told no. Apologies if this is turning into a therapy session for the writer.
The spit from Masuaku’s mouth wasn’t the only thing to be seen flying from a Hammer’s players mouth during the month of January after youngster Josh Cullen saw one of his teeth fly out during the away game to Shrewsbury Town which started a series of mind the gap jokes from club captain Mark Noble at his expense. Credit to the lad though for playing on until the end of the game and not taking the Cristiano Ronaldo route of demanding a mobile phone from the physio to enable him to see the damage and decide that playing on wasn’t an option.
The defeat to Wigan of course followed the inability in the FA Cup 3rd round to see off League One Shrewsbury in 90 minutes with the cup tie finally being decided in the Hammers favour after extra time in the replay. After a congested holiday period for fixtures it’s no surprise to see the number of injuries suffered by players start to rise again with the likes of Manuel Lanzini and Marko Arnautovic facing lay offs of six and three weeks respectively.
With a depleted squad due to injuries and suspensions, manager David Moyes then decides that the Crystal Palace game is the prime opportunity to show he meant what he said about time keeping and effort when taking over and promptly dropped fit again Michail Antonio from the match day squad when you could argue he was the only fit player with any real pace in a game where 3 points against your rivals could count for an awful lot in the fight to avoid relegation come May. I’m all for having principles but surely only an idiot voluntarily chooses to shoot himself in the foot at such times. One point was better than no but the opportunity of gaining all three certainly wasn’t helped by this decision against a side which contained pace in the guise of players such as Wilfred Zaha.
Back to the transfer window and we are lead to believe that Leicester City refused to do business with the club over the loan signing of Algerian striker Islam Slimani following comments by Karren Brady last season in her newspaper column about the City owner. I’m not sure if the Sporting President Bruno de Carvalho had coined an extra nickname for Brady after his infamous Dildo brothers comment to describe Mssrs Gold and Sullivan but may I suggest that many Hammers fans would suggest it is linked to the place whereby a lady would insert a dildo and starts with a c.
I mentioned early the recall of the two Reeces; Burke and Oxford and the fact that they were sent back to the clubs they had previously been on loan two on the basis no player can appear for more than two clubs during the course of a single season. One assumes rightly or wrongly that this was on the basis that neither player had met expectations during the games they featured in. However can this period really be a fair reflection on the ability of either player when they’re forced into a team against sides such as Shrewsbury or Wigan where the nucleus of the first team squad is missing and you’re trying to form relationships on the pitch with other players who you haven’t kicked a ball with at all so far this season. Maybe I’m putting too much into that analysis and like always it’s just a thought or an expression of an opinion. However that being said there’s a hint of Jose Mourinho to it who famously said he could tell within ten minutes whether or not a player would make his side or words to that effect. A talent that has worked so well for the Portuguese Manager if you discount the likes of Mo Salah and Kevin de Bruyne from the equation to name just two of the players he let go who have gone onto big and better things.
Despite all the chaos at the time of writing West Ham remain unbeaten in 2018 having last lost at home to Newcastle United 3-2 on December the 23rd. Also at the time of writing it’s just been announced that Tony Henry has just been relieved of his duties at West Ham and quite right too. Perhaps February might turn out to be everything that January wasn’t in what proved to be another chaotic month for the London side.
Two nil & we f**ked it up 