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Having had their fingers burned, nay incinerated, with their signings of a catalogue of playing 'cripples', the West Ham hierarchy are obviously 'extremely concerned' with regards to future signings and to avoid similar mistakes. Now what seems a totally understandable course of action, does however have it's drawbacks.

Possibly as early as next week, the full extent of Manuel Pellegrin's disastrous spell in the east end will be coming to a conclusion, the club have already jettisoned Jack Wilshere, Sebastien Haller, Felipe Anderson, Albion Ajeti, not forgetting Roberto, the final departee scheduled is Andriy Yarmolenko.

When Christiano Ronaldo was at the height of his pomp during his time at Manchester United, their then manager, Alex Ferguson had a running battle with Real Madrid over their 'tapping up' of the Portuguese maestro. Ferguson famously described the Real Madrid board as "gangsters" and that he would not countenance doing any business with them, however they eventually got their man, despite Manchester United's enormous financial resources.