With 'transfer fever fully blown around the Barclays Premier League, particularly West Ham United's rivals, Hammers fans are beginning to feel increasingly edgy as the transfer window rumbles on with apparent complete inactivity from The London Stadium.
As we have already written before, over 90% of speculated transfer deals are complete bullshit with the remaining 10% only offering around a 1 in 10 chance of having any truth in them, so essentially only around 1% of what you read eventually turns out to be true.
Even mentioning the 'S' word makes fans' blood boil given the amount of 'S'trikers Hammers have been linked with, even the expression 'linked' has become hackneyed, linked was probably real back in the day around the same time when Wimpy offered a bender brunch with 'linked' sausages.
So, Striker, midfield enforcer, left back and goal keeper all need reinforcements, in addition an extra centre back would help. These requirements are known to anyone and everyone, but all is not lost. Hammers famous Academy, which went fully under the radar during the management of Big Sam, Slaven Billic and Manuel Pellegrini, has finally managed to come up trumps with it's current crop of young players, a mixture of boys who have been with the club since early adolescence and youngsters brought in from other clubs.
Frederik Alves, aged 19, has already been promoted to the first team squad due to his impressive performances, whereas he was originally meant to spend a further year with the U-23's, his progress has been so prolific it would be stupid not to promote him. Alves is just the tip of the iceberg, Thierry Nevers, Levi Laing, Armstrong Okoflex and Pierre Ekwah Elimby have all been quietly recruited by David Moyes during the 'phoney transfer war', they join a whole host of bright youngsters who are just itching to progress.
Aji Alese, Joseph Anang, Harrison Ashby, Jamal Baptiste, Dan Chesters, Kai Corbett, Conor Coventry, Nathan Holland, Emmanuel Longelo, Mipo Odubeko and Freddie Potts are just some of the 'quality' youth players available, and there are more to follow!
So if David Moyes can do a 'loaves and fishes' number with his paltry transfer budget and acquire said striker, midfielder, left back and goalkeeper, then things are looking rosy, the club have always generated great players, the last time their was such a plethora of young talent was during the Harry Redknapp era which produced Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson, Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand.
The future will be nowhere near as gloomy as people seem to think it might be, so long as Moyes is given the funds he was promised to do the business HE wants, and not necessarily what the Board wants. -Ed
Comments
Striker wise
Carrolls available on a free its a no brainer isn't it
carlton 2:0?
carlton 2:0?
Frustrating so far....
It is a little frustrating at the moment whilst we all hope for a few much-needed additions arriving soon. But I do share in the optimism that we are finally getting that "Academy" production line working once again.
A player that hasn't been mentioned and seems to have gone under the radar is Ben Johnson, a very talented player who can play in several positions and was MOTM to many watchers last night. Hopefully, he is allowed to nail down a place in one position and thrive, instead of becoming another utility player type.
I was also impressed with Conor Coventry and Armstrong Okoflex last night. Personally, I would like for them to be put on a George Graham type program (he introduced this to his Arsenal team when he first took over) of body strengthening as they will need a man's strength to cope with the physicality of first-team football, where weakness is targeted and exploited by the opposition.
What I would like to add is that unfortunately, Kai Corbett looks likely to make another attempt to escape the Academy by hawking himself around other Premier League clubs (according to EX)...... looks like he could be off shortly as apparently, the new addition of Thierry Nevers means increased competition which he takes as a negative but should be used instead as motivation to push on and make the grade professionally.