Having completed what has been described as 'one of the most comprehensive medicals ever seen for a footballer', Jack Wilshere will finally be unveiled as a West Ham United player today. The paper work has been completed and the promo video has already been filmed, the official confirmation had been delayed until monday in order to maximise publicity as it was thought that the news would get lost due to a certain football match involving England!
As has been widely mentioned, Wilshere's signing was effectively rubber stamped as soon as Manuel Lanzini picked up his nasty injury, although not disimilar both players could function together when Lanzini does eventually return, in fact having Wilshere in the squad might enable Lanzini to have a full recovery and not be rushed back too soon as has often been the case in the past with important players. As Wilshere's Arsenal contract had expired, no fee was involved which, so long as the old Hammers new signing injury curse doesn't strike, represents great value even at £100,000 per week for three years.
Essentially with a bit of ducking and diving West Ham have acquired Jack Wilshere and Ryan Fredericks without any up front payment, not only do the deals represent gret value but they also increase the 'British' content of the squad which will be most useful in order to comply with the 'home grown player' ratio that all Barclays Premier League clubs must adhere to. The 'home grown' factor is very important because the next additions to the squad will use up a lot of the overseas quota!
Finally West Ham are closing in on a club record £40 Million deal for Felipe Anderson, negotiations with Lazio have been fractious to say the least but it seems as if the deal is finally going to happen. Many fans were of the opinion that Lazio were taking the rise out of West Ham because of the way they kept moving the goal posts, but there are probably a lot more reasons why the deal has proved so difficult to get over the line, namely the payment structure, apparnetly Lazio kept raising the price to offset Hammers' plans to pay the fee in three instalments, a business practice that is commonly used and one that West Ham have exploited in the past.
With Ryan Fredericks, Issa Diop and Lukasz Fabianski having already arrived at the London Stadium the addition of Anderson will really show how Pellegrini wants his team to shape up, deals for Fabian Balbuena and Andriy Yarmolenko are also in the pipeline. Central defender Balbuena is set to arrive from Corinthians after they confirmed a fee which is reported to be £3.5 Million had been agreed with West Ham and Borussia Dortmund winger Yarmolenko is due to arrive in London for his medical. Yarmolenko only joined Dortmund a year ago for a fee of £23 Million from Dynamo Kiev but they are willing to let him go and their sporting director, Michael Zorc, confirmed late on Sunday that West Ham were in talks over a deal.
So far West Ham have only released James Collins, Patrice Evra and Joe Hart from the senior squad, although Reece Burke is said to be interesting both Hull City and Derby County, apparently a deal was in place for the youngster to join Hull but Derby under the management of Frank Lampard are attempting to hijack the deal. Still the numbers are not adding up though, who else will be shown the door? Interesting times ahead - Ed
PS: The name on the back of Jack's shirt when he was a youngster? None other than the 'mad monk' John Moncur!
