Forum | General Discussion

The gnashing and grinding of teeth generated by fans seeing Hammers flop Sebastien Haller 'ripping up' the Champions League could be heard from Stratford to Braintree, a situation made worse by the ever increasing 'positive' exploits of the 27 year old Ivorian striker sold by West Ham to Ajax for an initial £23 Million loss.

Watching Haller receive accolades from near and far has left many fans feeling the club made an atrocious error by letting Haller go, but all is NOT as it seems! Although Hammers DIDN'T add a goals scored clause in Haller's contract of sale, the club DID insist on a healthy *25% sell on fee which at the time many thought worthless.

It's funny how things can change isn't it? The value of the sell on clause is now the subject of much attention, particularly with the recent news that Sebastien Haller is being lined up to replace £150 Million superstar Erling Haaland at Borussia Dortmund. The much sought after 21 year old is expected to leave Dortmund next summer and join any of a list of prominent clubs including both of the Manchester clubs as well as Chelsea and Liverpool.

Rumour has it that Ajax will demand in excess of €50 Million from Dortmund for Haller, Sport Bild have reported that despite being happy at Ajax, Haller IS willing to make the move because he had always felt 'comfortable' in the Bundesliga and really enjoyed his time at Eintrecht Frankfurt, having moved there from Utrecht as a youngster.

The €12.5 Million Hammers could receive will go some way to compensating for what was a bad experience for ALL parties involved, it would draw a line in sand and see Hammers loss reduced to around £10 Million from the 'Haller experience', not good but better than it looked.

Haller's increase in value has only just put it back to where it was in the first place, a lesson learned and one that hopefully new head of recruitment Rob Newman will not need to take on board, because he will already know the pitfalls of signing a player who 'looks good on paper' but is unsuited to the environment where they are going to have to play! -Ed

*PS: There is some conjecture that the sell on fee was ONLY 20%, however there is further conjecture that there was NO sell on fee at all! We will be contacting the club to try to clear up that particular point and print their response as soon as we receive it.

Jesse Lingard and his agent, who is also his brother, have been playing a cat and mouse game with Manchester United since the attacking midfielder returned to Old Trafford from his highly successful loan spell at West Ham. The player who is a youth product from the Carrington based academy, returned to the North of England confident that he had showed enough during his time in the capital to be recalled to Ole Gunnar's first team, despite the arrival of Jayden Sancho!

Unfortunately for Jesse, Ronaldo 'decided' to rejoin Utd thus firmly knocking Lingard down the pecking order. Athough Lingard has performed admirably when called upon this season, including his late goal at the London Bowl that ultimately sealed victory for the visitors.

As we have mentioned before, the 28 year old's desire to earn a starting berth wit the club he grew up with is admirable, and a course of action Hammers fans would expect of a player coming through their own Academy. However in the cold light of day, irrespective of how much he shines during his 'cameo' appearances, Lingard will never be more than a bit player if he remains at Old Trafford.

Already financially secure, Lingard has already expressed his desire to make the final cut of England's World Cup squad for the finals in Qatar having narrowly missed out on the Euro Cup. Newcastle may well 'queer' Hammers pitch to bring Lingard back to East London, but he clearly loves the club and gets on famously with all the players, and even more importantly the manager.

There is NO way Nikola Vlasic and Lingard cannot work either in tandem or independently, they are different players but could be the vital constituents of a team that could really progress, how much does Moyes want Linhgard"? Better ask Rob Newman! - LN

The International break never fails to amuse and annoy in equal measure, not only for the strain put on players travelling afar and risking injury, or burn out or both, but because of the proliferation of absurd transfer 'stories' that invariably surface like unwanted toilet flotsam reappearing!

The latest piece of fiction to do the rounds is almost one giraffe too far even for the most gullible of people, Hammers are apparently 'interested' in Alexis Sanchez...NOT! Oh we completely forgot how much David Moyes loves overpaid, overage and underwhelming players who couldn't win a sports day race.

32 year old Sanchez moved to Manchester United from Arsenal on huge wages, but after only managing five goals across two seasons they allowed him to join Inter on loan and then permanently, without receiving a final transfer fee. Since joining Inter he has got even worse, he scored four goals in his debut season and seven in his second year. This season he is out of favour and form but still on MASSIVE wages for the little he has to offer, Inter are desperately keen to get his £115,000 wages off their books as soon as possible and will even countenance receiving no transfer fee at all!

There is no way David Moyes would touch Sanchez with a barge pole, not even while on a Hackney canal Gin Palace barge! NEXT - Ed

Just when Hammers fans began to dream of their club becoming genuine top six contenders on a regular basis, along comes a competitor who can blow not only West Ham, but any other club in World football completely out of the water! Irrespective of the possible human rights and slavery abuses allegedly carried out by the de facto owners of the state investment fund that has just purchased Newcastle United from Mike Ashley, the fact is the numbers won't add up for West Ham.

Every single one of Hammers potential transfer deals is now in danger of being scuppered by the most recent 'new kids on the Block' to have acquired massive funding from a middle east pariah state, the aptly named Amanda Stavely, substitute an L for the T, has been quick to drip feed Toon fans, starved of any good news for years, information regarding potential signings for the January window.

Tapping up being seen as stage one of a successful 'whitewashing', followed up by extensive community funding of 'worthy' projects while simultaneously turning a blind eye to gross atrocities, even murders carried out by the club's new owner's security services in their homeland.

The funding made available by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salma WILL see the Toon become a footballing force, it will be a double whammy for the beleaguered Hammers owners because now Mike AShley has gone, they will take up the baton of being the most disliked owners of ANY Barclays Premier League club, while at the same time seeing all their potential business plans go up in smoke.

Amanda Stavely 'slaved' over getting the deal done for a couple of years, you could say that Newcastle fans will now become 'Slaves to the rhythm' of clinking coins and rattling chains in equal measure! - Ed