We’re not expecting the club to give David Moyes an unlimited transfer budget this summer, that would be unrealistic.
But it’s no secret that a sizeable transfer fund must be given to Moyes to ensure he can bring in the right players to improve the squad, as he begins planning for a season in Europe.
Squad depth prevented us from seeing out a bid for a top four finish last season, with big injuries to the likes of Michail Antonio, Angelo Ogbonna and Declan Rice leaving us with not much to fall back on in terms of adequate back-ups.
So Moyes needs to bring in more players than he sells this summer in order to fix that issue, especially as he’ll have at least six more fixtures to contend with due to being in the Europa League group stages.
But with funds no doubt limited and the club having been stung with high transfer fees for underperformers in the past, it won’t be a surprise if Moyes is a little bit more careful when it comes to spending money in the coming months.
And that sentiment is echoed by Barry Fry, who was manager when David Gold and David Sullivan bought Birmingham City in the early 1990’s, with the current Peterborough United Director of Football insisting Moyes will not just spend money for the sake of it this summer.
Fry exclusively told West Ham World: “David Moyes is very sensible.
“When he was at Everton he worked miracles there, like he’s working a miracle at West Ham; he don’t spend stupid money. He wants value for money and he gets a certain type in. He’s very careful, it’s like he’s spending his own money.
“So he is very shrewd and I don’t think he’ll spend money willy-nilly and he won’t go smashing on the owner’s door to say ‘I want this bloke, even if he’s £50-60million.’
“He knows West Ham can’t afford that. So he’ll go for who they can afford.”
David Moyes has already proved that he can find a bargain in the transfer market, with Tomas Soucek (£19.1m) and Vladimir Coufal (£5.4m) being the two bargains of the season, and the likes of Jarrod Bowen (£20m) showing there is plenty of value to be found in the Championship.
Moyes also opted against signing a striker in January, despite us desperately needing a back up to help Michail Antonio in the second half of the season, because he didn’t want to waste money on a striker just for the sake of bringing one in.
So Fry is right in what he says about the Scot, and we can trust him to get the right players in without spending a fortune this summer – we just need to hope Gold and Sullivan are prepared to pay for Moyes thinks needs to be spent.
