Hold Your Horses Mouths Arnie

The media love a good transfer story to fill gaps left by the International void, England's last gasp win has ensured the country's presence at the Nations Cup finals next year thus ensuring the oiling of press expense accounts much to the relief of 'deprived' journo's! But as they say never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so the Arnoutovic to moving to either Man Utd, Man city or Chelsea are par to the course, Arnie is dammned if he talks and dammned if he doesn't. Speculation regarding the Hammers talisman is especially rife towards the beginning and end of the transfer windows and it seems this January's will be no exception!

Of course there is definitely a bit of 'Anelka' syndrome associated with Marko Arnoutovic due to the fact that his brother is his agent, and it is his brother who has been spouting off at anyone who will listen. It should be noted that the 'source' of the most recent 'Arnie departure' story was from a regional radio station, the interview with Arnie's brother was conducted in Austrian which may explain a few of the anomolies contained within the story. Depending on the interpretation he is either very happy or he isn't, the inference used by the Press has obviously been a negative one leading the reader to assume it can only be a matter of time before Arnoutovic is on his way out of the London Stadium.

However, after coming on as a substitute for Austria at Windsor Park and setting up the winning goal, he told Sky Sports that he is not paying attention to speculation about his future. "I don't want to talk about it. I am concentrated on West Ham. "We have a big game against Manchester City on Saturday and I am only thinking about this game and the following games and what is being said is not my business. My business is to perform on the pitch, to put in performances and that is what I want to do."

While not exactly being a concrete affirmation of his intent to stay, his comments don't seem to be those of a player who has already made his mind up to leave, perhaps he is going to see how things progress in the next few weeks ahead of the window, with the exception of the Manchester City game there are several fixtures to play that could see Hammers moving up the table to a place where competing for a Europa Cup berth could become a reality. Agents being agents will always try to get better 'terms' for their client, they would be remiss in their duties if they didn't.

Whether they are liked or not agents have enormous power nowadays, which can be rather good if they are working in the interest of your club, unfortunatley in this instance the agent obviously isn't. Speculation will die down when some other highly paid player demands to double his salary to stay, it is the way of the world, or as Harry Redknapp used to say " Sic transit gloria 'Mondeo'". - Ed