Forum | General Discussion

Despite his family holding a reign and tradition in East London, it appears a decision has concluded the end of this spell, West Ham are set to sell the youngster for £10,000,000 to Club Brugge.

Club Brugge were happy to purchase the Englishman for €12m after losing their star and former West Ham target, Raphael Onyedika.

West Ham had been open to entertaining offers for quite a while, and the £10m fee is sufficient for West Ham to bite and subsequently sell.

With the Hammers already having limited options in the midfield before the sale of Potts, it begs a question when are signings going to happen because all West Ham can do is sell - though, this is what happens when you’re relegated - asset stripped.

Freddie Potts has already proven himself in the Championship with a loan stint at Portsmouth and with West Ham already suffering a blow with Tomas Soucek’s injury, it raises a concern as to whether Nuno will even have enough options come the start of the season.

West Ham’s slow transfer activity puts them on par with Wrexham, who are the only Championship club to not make a signing so far this season. The Hammers would be on par with them, but the confirmation of Keiber Lamadrid puts the club at a tally of one.

However, with the Hammers having made the most money this transfer window from player sales out on anyone in the Footballing world, the primary target begins as a winger, where the Hammers are exploring their own targets, but are happy to take their time ‘operating’ under a new system.

The names mentioned to be of significant interest are Manor Solomon, Simon Adingra and Sorba Thomas.

During pre-season, Nuno has opted to play Ward-Prowse on the wing but not out of choice, simply due to the lack of winger options available - but it should be noted that Nuno has provided Ward-Prowse with a clean slate and unless a remarkable offer were to come in for him, he will remain a West Ham player… not as a winger fortunately!

The club aren’t worried about the lack of signings so far and have assured Nuno that the correct people will be signed come the time required.

Many Hammers fans will be quick to be frustrated by the lack of signings which is understandable, but under a totally new backroom of higher ups, fans need to be confident that what they will produce isn’t a bunch of flatulent tat that comes through known agents and more so are good players of quality for a decent price, as it would be towards the end of the window and other club need money to invest elsewhere.

West Ham are set to take on Portsmouth at the London Stadium in the Carabao Cup in just 9 days.

Since the Hammers moved to the London Stadium in 2016, they have had little to no control over the decisions ongoing in the stadium and in the event of a proposed change, there always seem to be difficulties when it comes to concluding deals due to the financial implications.

The committee only meets once per year, and it happens to be in the summer, which you will see causes a whole bunch of complications. The stadium currently holds the ability to host 10 non-sporting events, which translates to 10 concerts, but the London Stadium LLP would like to host more to meet and match what Spurs do (20), but this would require West Ham to miss out on home games during September and play more away, so gigs could be held… just a casual complication.

The other factor is due to the limited money our previous primary shareholder put in… combined with the unwillingness to budge from the London Stadium LLP, it is difficult to make meaningful changes to improve the stadium. However, one possibility they are looking into once again is changing all of the white seats to either Claret & Blue or just Claret.

It would be a possibility to achieve and wouldn’t be too difficult to make happen financially; however, finding the time, on the other hand, is difficult and either more away games will have to be played or more concerts will have to be missed out on - someone will have to budge!

The last important factor that was discussed was the Stadium naming rights, a financial powerhouse in Football that isn’t taken as seriously as it should be, and West Ham not having a naming deal over the last decade has cost the club over £150m in revenue - could’ve secured the Carlos Bacca deal with that!

The London Stadium LLP have accused West Ham of being the stubborn factor when negotiating a deal and are supposedly the reason why the Vodafone naming rights deal in 2017 collapsed.

Regarding a future sponsorship, it was said: “It's probably not the right time to sell the naming rights when we're in the Championship. We need to get back into the Premier League.

"But there are lots of preparatory things that we can do to present a united front in terms of putting the naming rights to the market.

"Because one of the reasons the deal didn't work in 2024 was because we were not a united front, and any partner coming to the table wants a clean, easy deal where they have a single point of contact and they can get on with their commercial opportunity.”

The proposed deal in 2024 that collapsed was set to be with Allianz.

The relationship with the London Stadium LLP now has a chance to blossom, seeing as the previous negotiators on the Hammers’ side have now dissipated; it’s time to see what will be done in the future, but all in all, it’s an excruciatingly tough dynamic to work with, and should West Ham own the stadium outright one day, all of these difficulties fade away.

West Ham: Hermansen, Walker-Peters, Kilman, Mavropanos, Scarles, Ward-Prowse, Kante, Lamadrid, Bowen (C), Pablo, Taty

Subs: Areola, Potts, Marshall, Orford, Herrick, Earthy, Golambeckis, Mayers, Ajala, Casey, Cornet