Realistic Targets Begin To Emerge

As we discussed in yesterday's It's All Falling Into Place-Hammers Signings Update. West Ham are only a few players short of having a decent, if still painfully thin squad, one that will need to be padded out with a mixture of youth players and loanees in order for David Moyes to perform his 'loaves and fishes' magic with his woefully inadequate transfer kitty.

Real progress IS being made behind the scenes, the potential signings available and within budget are limited, but the fiscal fall out due to the Covid pandemic has reached so far and wide, that a combination of players with exciting potential and those who are already established are available.

IF Abdullah Sima and Matheus Pereira are signed, and we admit that is a rather large IF, then their arrival could be backed up by a couple of incredibly good value loan signings. The need for large scale reinforcements was made abundantly clear with the injury to Angelo Ogbonna after only 5 minutes in the friendly against Celtic.

The mighty FC Barcelona are currently experiencing the perfect storm financially, their plight makes West Ham's look relatively insignificant, despite the huge value of their squad, on paper! However if you factor in their wage commitments and player amortisation, they are in dreadful peril of going under! Lionel Messi's club HAVE to sell, loan out or release a whole raft of players just to be able to tread water.

So it comes as no surprise that West Ham have made an approach for Barcelona's 26 year old centre back Clement Lenglet. According to 'respected' Spanish news outlet Sport, Lenglet, who earned his 13th international cap at Euro 2020 earlier this summer playing for France, is the subject of huge interest from Premier League clubs West Ham and Everton, with talk being of a loan deal with a commitment to buy.

Paradoxically, PSG are on the flip side of poverty, but still have to cope with squad restraints that even they cannot cheat their way out of! So in order to comply with the regulations they are willing to negotiate the exit of their 3rd choice goal keeper Alphonse Areola. The French club would prefer a straight transfer as opposed to a loan deal, but West Ham are pushing for a loan to buy deal.

If these two players can be enticed to the London Stadium in addition to Abdullah Sima and Matheus Pereira, then the first team just needs to add another left back and central midfielder to at least resemble a team capable of taking on the Barclays Premier League for the new season.

Unfortunately that will be that, because without serious further investment in the squad, IN ADDITION to that we have already mentioned, any hopes of progressing past the group stages of the Europa League will be over before they have a chance to begin.

It should be remembered that the winners of the competition qualify for the Champions League and that realistically Hammers will NOT be able to mount a top four challenge next season, in fact some are saying just surviving in the Barclays Premier League with the current lack of investment in the squad would be an achievement in itself! - Ed