Forum | General Discussion

Time moves on even if statues don’t move… unfortunately, the Hammers are statues. As time passes, it’s becoming further and further apparent that West Ham’s inevitable ‘top targets' are slipping through their fingers for cheap fees.

It was reported a while back that the Hammers had scouted two lists in the event of relegation. One would be targets staying up, the other about relegation. Seeing as the latter occurred, that presumed list was in preparation for no money coming into the club from an owner, aka David Sullivan, as well as anticipating us struggling to make player sales.

However, seeing as Daniel Kretinsky has taken over, he personally injected what is thought to be £90m and the £85m from Mateus Fernandes meant that the supposed “£200 million that needed to be raised” suddenly became just a mere £25m which would be easily achievable given the ‘assets’ the club have at their disposal.

The idea of deliberately avoiding certain free agent signings suggests that money is available to spend, and Kretinsky is confident that we can do that, as he confirmed via interviews.

The ultimatum here is did West Ham underestimate the ‘power’ that they hold? Ideas of nobodies on a cheap fee have now changed to still potentially spending ‘Premier League-like fees’ despite being in a different league.

Letting players such as Martin Adeline go, who was supposedly our ‘top Fernandes replacement’ is now off to Hamburg SV for a mere €6m fee, something simply has to be in the water! Targets of better calibre… well, hopefully.

The same can be said for Manchester City’s Sverre Nypan whom the Hammers were said to be interested in taking on loan, has instead joined Lommel SK.

Slow or planned? Something is going on behind the scenes undoubtedly but reinforcements have to be made otherwise, there’ll be a whole lot of losing, off the pitch and on it! Tick tock West Ham!

Hammers target, Hammers remain interested, Hammers rumoured to bid and the Hammers intrigued… all of the above have run riot into the world of media, ranging from England to Portugal where other international clubs are reporting ‘done deals’ to try and force a move away when the reality is completely and utterly different.

Reports are all ifs, buts and maybes, and everything is minimal. Exits are unknown, incomings are pending but who is another question.

Nuno Espírito Santo has made it known that he would like to sign Disasi. According to Chelsea sources specifically, Nuno has encouraged West Ham and wants the club to do anything possible to convince the Frenchman to join, it is rumoured that a £25m offer has been tabled and it hasn’t yet been denied, more will hopefully come in the following week.

West Ham’s interest in Axel Disasi is genuine and it is one of the reasons as to why the Hammers opted against signing Dael Fry on a free from Middlesbrough, who has since signed for Birmingham City.

If the Hammers were to miss out on Disasi, it would be a significant blow but given the club’s desire to forfeit the chance to sign Fry, it would be a huge shock if the deal for Disasi didn’t go through, but more shocking things have happened, that’s for sure.

As the Hammers set to ramp up their transfer business for the upcoming weeks, the club have turned to a former target, in hopes of bolstering their midfield for the upcoming campaign.

The target in question here is Nottingham Forest’s midfielder James McAtee. The Forest man moved to Nottingham last season in the hope of receiving starting game time as well as having European experience. However, his time at Forest has been dull and over time he has fallen out of favour and now an exit is on the cards.

West Ham were formally interested in him, but Nottingham Forest ultimately paid the fee Manchester City were asking for and we missed out. However, Nottingham Forest are now willing to either sell the player or allow him to go out on loan.

West Ham could venture for this move and offer either a loan with an option to buy, or an obligation if we were to be promoted.

Nottingham Forest bought the Manchester City academy project in a deal worth up to £30m, but only £22m was paid as the add-ons weren’t fulfilled.

The only complication to this deal is that Manchester City do in-fact have a buy-back clause which they could potentially trigger, in the event a move elsewhere happens.

The other issue is whether Nuno decides to play him as a 10 or not. West Ham are known under Nuno’s tenure to not play with a direct attacking midfielder and tend to opt for a double pivot. Whilst Nuno could possibly have McAtee as an option, the Englishman won’t want to be second fiddle once again.

Nuno and the newest backroom addition, Nils Koppen, will further discuss targets and who to march on with for the Championship campaign

Nuno’s plan appears to be forming as West Ham United have taken a major step to helping Nuno off the pitch.

The Hammers had rumours circulating that Paco Jemez might not have renewed yet for a reason, and those suspicions are now correct. West Ham are closing in on getting Nuno’s right-hand man, Rui Pedro Silva, his assistant manager at both Wolves and Nottingham Forest.

Silva was a part of Wolves’ Championship season victory, and whilst Wolves fans hoped he could achieve the same once again with them, he appears to have snubbed the North and rejoined his former partner in East London.

Upon the news, Wolves fans were furious, with most upset as the sacking of Rob Edwards played a crucial part in seeing this happen, with a few fans claiming “he should’ve been the manager for us [Wolves]” - Not too bad then!

Rui Pedro Silva was part of Nuno’s backroom staff in the most impressive stints in his career, firstly his promotion from the Championship with Wolves, with a Europa League campaign following soon after and most recently, they conjured up European Football for Nottingham Forest, who went from relegation candidates to European successors. I wonder where we’ve seen this before?

It should be noted that Rui Pedro Silva did not join Nuno during his Saudi and Spurs spell, of which conveniently are two of the most disappointing moments of his managerial career.

The appointment will likely see Paco Jemez not join West Ham again, though that is uncertain given Paco’s cryptic messages that are being uploaded online.

Could Rui Pedro Silva rekindle with Nuno once again to achieve promotion? Only time will now tell.