The time has come for all teams to scramble for players seeking to improve their teams for the challenges ahead of them in the upcoming Premier League campaign.
As always, rumours surface that either excite or even frighten some fans, especially if that name goes along the lines of Shola Ameobi!
Either way, it is a pivotal point in a team’s pre-season where points are won and lost and that is why West Ham needs to approach the right type of players in order to gain the most points they can get in a vital season before the stadium move.
From my understanding, West Ham have £30m+ to lure players to join Slaven Billic’s Claret and Blue army, which is substantially higher than previous years where our financial situation has been unpredictably unsettling.
However, thanks to the owners’ ambition of giving the club stability, our funds are definitely enough to secure the services of some very good value for money players.
First on that list is Dimitri Payet. Now it took me a lot of time to see what the hype about this player was, especially after a fee of £12m or more is being asked for him. However, after studying his attributes and a couple of Youtube goal and assist compilations, I can tell that this is the exact type of player we need to be setting up those goals.
Without a massive player in his team like Andy Carroll or proven goalscorer such as Diafra Sakho in our team, he managed 17 assists in Ligue 1 this season, which is one of the highest across the top five leagues in Europe (just behind Messi).
He is a big step up from someone like Kevin Nolan or even Stewart Downing who, despite his very impressive start to the season that earned him an England cap, have both shown some lacklustre performances. Whereas Payet is a bona-fide world class player and an imperative addition to our squad.
Secondly, we simply ‘have’ to be signing Gokhan Tore, the Besiktas winger. Our frightening lack of quality in the winger department is visible, especially when using our attacking midfielder (Downing) to play out of position in the wide position.
Not only does Gokhan help us with this problem, he will thrive in this position. A former Chelsea academy member, at 23-years-old he is certainly an exciting prospect and definitely one of the hottest prospects in Europe. In all competitions he scored nine and assisted eight goals, which doesn’t sound outstanding, but he is the exact type of player we need, especially with access to a range of top class players.
Furthermore, it does help that we have secured his former manager as well which might make the deal more appealing to him and more likely to happen.
Finally, we need to secure the services of Carl Jenkinson on a permanent deal. The reason for this is that he is a young prospect who is just going to keep on improving and possibly become an England regular.
If we keep battling with Arsenal about a possible deal now, he may be way out of our price range next time out. Jenko loved his time at the club last season and along with Aaron Cresswell, a partnership of the two most dependable full backs in the game could further strengthen our already solid back four.
But we must secure his services permanently so as to fend off any other possible suitors and implement security in our back four in time for the start of the season.
As you can tell, my shopping list is not vast, however, these are the necessary purchases we need and as David Sullivan said a couple of weeks ago, it’s all nice buying a big marquee signing, but it is even better to spend that money more economically and for the right player and I think that with the surprisingly strong squad diversity, we are sure to be surprised by the quality we have for each position.
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