January 2017 Transfer Speculation

MrsGrey

Robbie Brady's signed for Burnley, from Norwich.

McHammer

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38789131

Hammers strikers article. Not sure if this is new.

buffybegood

Gobsmacked that, after failing to get a desperately needed striker yet again in the summer, we reach deadline day and still only have Carroll and Sakho who are both made of glass. It really beggars belief, especially as we saved £20m by not taking Zaza and then sold Payet for another £25m, on top of whatever was in the kitty for this window in the first place.

MunichHammer

We were never going to pay 20m for Zaza in one single installment in Jan and neither will we be getting the 25m for Payet in one payment. In fact I believe I read somewhere that the actual sum will be lower as we hadn't paid OM all of the 10m we bought Payet for. So just becaue we didn't buy Zaza and sold Payet doesn't mean we suddenly have a bank balance of +45m! We are not in danger of going down so we are not in immediate need of buying. Maybe, if one or two of our first team get injured we will see some youth? Who knows.

buffybegood

True enough Munich, but for the same applies for any purchases we would make. However you look at it, we're £45m better off than if we'd have bought Zaza and not sold Payet.

Hammerwombat

Ravel to QPR on loan. Good luck chap, I would hate to see all that precocious talent wasted. ;ravel

MunichHammer

True, but my point is that everyone seems to banding around these silly figures of 20m here or 25m there. It's similar to your statement above. The club didn't fail to sign a striker in the summer. Or last winter. Or the summer before that. While we didn't sign a striker like Lacazette or Bats (who knows how that might have turned out) we bought a promising Argentinian and a seasoned Italian international. It simply didn't work out but we did try and we did sign players.
Or a right back. When we loaned Jenks, in his first season he was great. In his second season ... not quite so. Nevertheless, in the summer after his first season, I dare say that man would have been over the moon had we managed to sign him outright.

Some people seem to be happy to beat the Daves with both ends of the stick at the same time. They didn't sign anyone and the ones they did sign are rubbish.

Huttonhammer

We don't ever spend big money really and it seems the directors make loads of noise but that's all it is. We have bought a couple of players that are no better than what we have already really .We have a new stadium which we pay very little for . We have sold Payet and sold our old ground for a pretty penny.

The questions I would ask are.

Where is the money?

Why can't we ever buy another striker with proven ability as Andy will only ever play a few games before being injured.

Other clubs who haven't been as lucky as us seem to find money but why do we just buy middle of the road players. We were lucky with Payet but he wasn't expensive.

We have a great ground with great fans but we never really spend any serious money.

Fonte and Snodgrass in , Payet gone. No money spent whatsoever !!

I would like to understand exactly what the directors are trying to do as to me it's all smoke and mirrors!! No real desire to spend any money at all.

Until we spend some money that we surely must have, We will continue to drift along instead of moving forwards.

Huttonhammer

I don't think Hogan would have made much if any difference to our attack but when Slaven says he didn't buy him due to the attacking options we already have at the club. You have to seriously question what team he has been watching this season?
If Andy doesn't play we look clueless up front.

Moore_than_a_nick

I'm surprised by the relative lack of mention of Sakho and also by the fact that often where he is mentioned, he's thrown (or gently placed) in the same injury-prone basket as Carroll.

He was a great striker for us before the rather mysterious long-term absence. He then finally came back, scored in his first start and got injured. But I don't know that we can infer from this that he is fragile. Perhaps he wasn't sufficiently warmed up or perhaps he was left on a little too long. He was supposed to be out for 6 weeks from around 30 November, I think, so should be due back around now.

Has anyone seen more recent info on his expected return?

Can anyone help shed light on whether he has a history of fragility or whether we should hold out hope that after getting over whatever kept him out for so long (which apparently he has done), he just had an unfortunate re-entry to match football, and could very well be a fit and reliable player for the rest of the season starting any time now?

OldCastleSwift

Sully said yesterday that Sakho will be back 'in a month or eight weeks time', so I doubt we'll see much of him at all this season. Which could be why Slav didn't mention him when he was reeling off his list of strikers that we had.

On paper, we have enough. In terms of what those strikers have produced so far, I don't think we do.

I'm also frustrated about the right back situation. Byram has no cover that I can see. Nordtveit is injured. Arbeloa was last seen in a pub from what I can make out and our two U23 right backs are out on loan. If Byram breaks down or gets suspended we're back to Antonio who was listed as one of the strikers we'll be relying on.

baracks_a_hammer

Pretty much barring the last couple of games against the mighty palace and boro, when AC played well, we have looked pretty grim up front, whilst concedeing plenty at the back all season.

So it is basically all about AC, especially as Sakho is pretty much written off for the season. If Slav is actually saying he is happy with what he has then it does worry me - what on earth has he been watching this season? He doesn't seem to fancy fletcher, that's pretty obvious, so he may as well have sent him to Leeds for game time because he'd probably rather play others out of position than play him. And if Calleri is so good why has he not featured much this season because as far as we know he hasn't been injured.

Yeoldhammer

When AC gets injured and we start Calleri up front. Lol

alderz

Remember when Ian Pearce played up front for us? ;lol

Wouldn't surprise me to see Ginge given a go.

Lukerz

25 minutes v Palace and 45 v Boro, two of the poorest sides around, and all of a sudden our inadequacies up front for the first 20 games disappear.

Lukerz

Don't get me wrong, if Carroll plays almost all of the remaining 16 games, and he was guaranteed to play out the rest of his career injury free, we won't need a forward, because a fit and in-form AC is our £30m striker. He'd be our Harry Kane, which means we'd only ever be looking for deputees.

Bazshuayi

He's had some strange and unlucky injuries. I guess the way he plays/moves enhances the potential for injury. Keeping fingers crossed that in the future he has only the average/norm amount of injuries

First 20 games we had plenty of injuries and unsettled lineups. Antonio was too far back, Cresswell too injured, Tore too much in the squad etc etc

Carroll, since we bought him, has always been our no1 striker and basically unplayable when on it.

Lukerz

Sakho back mid March Slav says on OS this morning.

baracks_a_hammer

I don't think many would dispute your last statement Baz

There would have been a strong case for returning Calleri and tore as well as Zaza. Fletcher should have been loaned out. But had all of that happened there would have been serious question marks raised over Slavs judgment. Granted tore has been injured but he looked less than convincing when he played. Fletcher and Calleri have not been injured but are not making the side - this tells us something. We've no idea what has truly happened with arbeloa. Masuaku, doubts over him too. Nordveidt? Enough said on him There's probably hope over Feghouli, but when you look at the all the others it doesn't read well.

Thankfully at least the two players we did sign in Jan SHOULD hit the mark better in their respective positions.

IronHerb

Antonio took 3-4 months to get in the team

baracks_a_hammer

Wrongly so, Herb IMO.

Vorselaarhammer

Obiang also didn't get in the team....

baracks_a_hammer

Obiang wasn't a Slav signing was he?

Adam

No, I think he was signed just before Bilic was appointed.

Didn't Gold tweet a picture of ogbonna when he signed, or was that the other way round?

alderz

I thought Obiang was officially Slav's first signing?

But I think the point still stands, that two of our more impressive performers this season are people who couldn't get near the side in the first few months of arriving. I'm not expecting Calleri to be even a 10 goal a season striker, but until he gets a run in the side we'll never know.

MrsGrey

I was looking up dates, and spotted this, which I hadn't seen before.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/dec/02/pedro-obiang-west-ham

alderz

I like that ;ok

Ogbonna studying the same course too. ;nonono

Ravel49

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11096/10750365/free-agent-xi-featuring-martin-caceres-frank-lampard-and-raul-meireles

#WelcomeBackJoey&Carlton

alderz

Raul Meireles seems like the sort of signing you'd like Rav

MrsGrey

alderz said:

I like that ;ok

Ogbonna studying the same course too. ;nonono

I don't know if you noticed the comment BTL?

I met him,but didn't recognise him when he brought his sister to enrol in the language school I work in . Nice guy and very humble, unlike Angelo Ogbonna, who also enrolled, and turned up late everyday shouting into his mobile.

;lol