Forum | Non-Football Related

Potter and Macaulay have finally managed to secure some funding to fulfil their midfield targets and in classic West Ham United fashion, the deals would be completed with just a handful of days until the window closes.

After over 3 months of interest, the Hammers have struck a deal with Southampton to secure Mateus Fernandes for £35,000,000. The original asking price fathomed over £60,000,000, but as time passed and as Fernandes became increasingly unhappy at remaining at the Saints, West Ham swooped in with both sides' officials meeting last night, and a deal was rapidly concluded by the morning, seeing as the Portuguese international has already completed the first part of his medical.

The deal became more apparent as not only was the Southampton player unhappy, but he seemed interested and excited with the prospect of joining West Ham over the other 13 clubs that were interested in him. We must've given him the Potter special and not held talks at the training ground, a mistake which we learned through Soungoutou Magassa, whose announcement is imminent, but a deal was nearly off after a 'medical technicality'.

The rumours at the moment are that it was to do with the player's vision, as he couldn't believe the state of the training ground but all is yet to be confirmed.

The Fernandes deal is set to include some hefty add-ons, supposedly reaching an extra £7,000,000 if requirements are fulfilled.

You'd suspect that Guido will be the first player out of the door IF both signings were to officially be announced, as well as Andy Irving, who's been linked to numerous clubs.

Even with the confirmation of both of these signings in the coming days, the window is far from over and more business in other departments needs to be done. The club are allegedly still looking to sign a central defender as well as a striker before the end of the transfer window and if all this guff is to be true, then we've got a very few busy days up ahead.

West Ham started and ended their Carabao Cup run in Wolverhampton against Wolves. From the off Potters side looked the better team and had a few chances to take the lead but unfortunately couldn’t.

The lack of action in the midfield already was becoming apparent before the 30th minute, and in the 42nd, Guido Rodriguez would give away a lousy penalty and despite Wolves initially missing the penalty, the rebound would go in after poor marking and an attempt at a save, 1-0 coming into the break.

As usual, the substitutes would warm up at half-time so it was as per with no subs being made at the start of the second 45m segment.

It would only take 5 minutes for the Hammers to equalise, Tomas Soucek won the header from KWP cross and similarly, Paqueta would win a header from a Bowen cross which would see us take a 2-1 lead.

No substitutes, no change and Wolves would take advantage of that, the midlands side making 5 substitutions, one of which being Strand Larsen who would score a brace. A goal in the 82nd minute and a goal in the 84th. Our lacklustre and our no-longer-energetic midfielder saw Wolves take advantage over us and knock us out the Carabao Cup.

Fullkrug and Wilson would come on only after we’d conceded 2, but all was too late.

That’s now eleven goals conceded in THREE games and it’s a horrible state for the club to be in. Jarrod Bowen was verbally abused at the end of the 90’ but our OWN fans and attempted to climb the advertisement boards to reach him but was held back by Tomas Soucek. Paqueta was moved to tears at the end of the game, Potter looks defeated and even with our supposed remaining summer signing that we’ll be getting, it doesn’t seem they’ll come into much effect.

It’s a dark time to be a Hammers fan and the lights seem to only be getting dimmer.

After West Ham's dreadful showing on Friday night, it caused the sports world to erupt with criticism from Hammers fans to pundits to players and even generic football fans.

Fans gathered on radio stations and talk shows to discuss the abysmal performance that we had just seen, and a wide ranging amount of criticism was made. Fans blaming the manager, pundits blaming the plays, but most admirably were Rob Green and Jamie Redknapp, who not only gave spot-on analysis, but criticised the owners and exclaimed how there are so many issues on the pitch and even more off the pitch.

Rob Green spoke about the issues at West Ham and the problems the club has always faced structurally "It all points to one direction - It's the board, the owners. It's been there since the get-go, since they took over the club, and it's been that pointer: "Let's come to a world-class stadium and build a world-class team." They've got the stadium - so they think - but they're a long way from having the side.

"You do wonder how someone like maybe Declan Rice papered over the cracks in the success of the European season, how much someone like Jarrod Bowen is papering over the cracks of having a successful season here.

You look at it all and think, 'There's never really been a coherent plan,' and that's what Graham Potter had at other clubs - at Brighton for example, that's what they all had: A coherent plan."

Every single word Rob Green uttered is completely and utterly true, and it's a breath of fresh air for many fans to hear an ex-player criticise the board to a level as such.

In light of Green's comments, Jamie Redknapp wasn't afraid to throw his own out there, "If I'm Sunderland, Burnley, Leeds, I'm looking at West Ham and thinking, 'they're the ones, they're the weakest team in the Premier League we're going to catch'. "That squad isn't good enough. They haven't got enough good players." As harsh as those comments are, 99% of the fanbase would agree with him.

And in regards to transfers, “They need four, five, six new signings. They haven't got the quality. I've seen some defending in my life... that was as bad as it gets."

The club have managed to put themselves in a situation where the squad is in need of another transfer window, and this summer window hasn't even finished yet.

A friendly reminder that the transfer window closes in EIGHT days...