Well well well, haven’t I had to eat a massive slice of Humble Pie!
I admit that maybe I was hasty and quite angry over last season, which was shown in my previous article that the current board need to sell up and go but boy, they have well and truly mugged me right off.
This summer we’ve seen our right back position solved with the addition of experienced Argentinean Pablo Zabaleta, who I think is exactly what we need. He’s a veteran who can take Sam Byram under his wing to mould into the perfect right-back.
Eight days after Zaba officially signed, we saw England’s No.1 Joe Hart finally sign on a season-long loan deal, which saw the exit of Darren Randolph to Middlesbrough, Marko Arnautovic submitted a transfer request at Stoke City and signed for the Hammers in a new club record deal and then Javier Hernandez signed the other side of the same weekend to cap off a fine week’s work by David Sullivan and Co.
Apparently there is still work to be done outside of the midfield position after David Sullivan’s recent talkSPORT interview with Jim White and Tony Cottee.
Another striker has been tipped join, with Raul Jimenez, Vincent Aboubakar, Andre Gray and Moussa Dembele all linked and a speedy winger in Lazio’s Keita Balde has been targeted with a reported €32m bid agreed.
Sofiane Feghouli has reportedly agreed a move to Galatasaray for £4m, but I honestly think he will end up at another Istanbul club that are in European competition and who can take on his high wages.
Robert Snodgrass (as we reported first) has been linked with a move away to Brighton and Hove Albion with other clubs such as Middlesbrough, Celtic and Leeds all looking to acquire the Scotsman.
With new deals goin Angelo Ogbonna, Pedro Obiang and the imminent renewal of Manual Lanzini’s contract, I feel the board now need to reward the most important man who is key to our success with a long term contract – Slaven Bilic.
Bilic only has 12 months remaining on his current deal and come December he can talk to any other club he wants, whilst trying to get West Ham a top six finish and domestic cup win.
Is it a good idea for the club to allow our head coach to be in charge of the season without any future position? I firmly believe that Slav should be given at least a one-year extension so that he can continue to build his team for the following season based on this season’s success.
The board have backed him in the transfer market and trusted his decisions in the selection of players, Kelechi Ihneanacho is a perfect example of this.
I urge the board to act now and give Bilic a new deal before the start of the new Premier League season. This contract will be the biggest signal of intent for the players, the fans and most of all, the competition. To install additional belief and trust in a man who could break the top seven positions and win our first piece of silverware in 37 years would increase our passion and support.
Come on you Irons! This season is going to be a great one.
Follow me on Twitter: @_LDESIGN
Don’t forget to check out my West Ham Spotify playlist for songs all club related!
The list includes:
Various versions of bubbles
Lanzini “Aint nobody”
Chicharito “Despacito” & “let it be (Little Pea)”
Arnautovic “Sweet Dreams”
Antonio “Magic by Pilot” & “99 red balloons”
Zabaleta “Mr Loverman (ZABA)”
Sakho “Return of the mack(Sak)”
Andy Carroll “Sweet Carroll-nine”
…and many more!
See if you can guess the old players songs too!