Only a few months left in the season and then the transfer rumour mill restarts, linking every in-form Hammer a ‘big’ English club… Huh? What’s that? Oh, sorry! I’ve just had a flashback to five years ago!
Let’s fast forward to June 2016… the new TV revenue comes into effect next season, which means every Premier League team will earn £128m upfront for the season. That’s the equivalent of 10 Payets and an Adrian! (That’s some team that!)
Gone are the days of West Ham United having to sell one key player in order to invest in three average players. The past couple of seasons have been our best transfer windows in living memory but now we will have financial backing to spend £20m on one player.
Every player has a price, but it’s giving those players a chance to succeed. We’ve given many chances to expensive flops in the past years. £11m for promising German talent Savio Nserenko and £7m for experienced England winger Kieron Dyer has proved that previous regime of scouts had no clue what a ‘West Ham player’ should be.
Gold and Sullivan have been very good in the market and have supported each manager they’ve put in charge. I expect our owners to come out and say ‘there is a budget for transfers, but we’re budgeting,’ which is a shrewd tactic to make sure that we don’t pay over the odds for players in less wealthy league setups.
I have narrowed down a list of five players West Ham should look to invest in to develop our current squad this summer…
