Transfer rumours and speculation to take us through to summer.

Lukerz

The Irish Independent claim Man Utd are going to make a bid of around the £50m mark for Declan Rice this summer & his advisors are more than aware of their interest.

imagelost

Lukerz said:

The Irish Independent claim Man Utd are going to make a bid of around the £50m mark for Declan Rice this summer & his advisors are more than aware of their interest.

He has a worth £80 million

alderz

What does “more than aware” mean?

My friend said I was “more than invited” to his wedding and I asked him what that meant and he said “well, it just means invited”.

OutcastLondoner

alderz said:

What does “more than aware” mean?

My friend said I was “more than invited” to his wedding and I asked him what that meant and he said “well, it just means invited”.

Technically, it could mean they don’t just know about the interest but are actively considering it or their response (or more). Or it could just be people speaking in stupid ways.

OldCastleSwift

According to none-too-bad pundit and ex-Hammer Scott Minto, Real Madrid have been speaking to Rice's family about a potential move.

Pretty sure that's tapping up, but if they come in with a £50m bid, hard to see the Dave's turning it down.

thornburyiron

I couldn’t care less if Rice’s family move to Madrid as long as Declan stays with us.

claretandbluesky

I don't think they will even entertain a 50m bid. I have already mentioned on the Rice thread that he will in my view attract offers of around 80m -100m if you give it a year or two. At that sum I think we may cash in but he is worth more than 50m now due to his age. It's not really likely he has reached his peak which will likely arise in 3 or 4 years time. He could, and it is a big could, but he could easily be as good as Rio, and I will say it quietly, even as good as Bobby!!!!! There I have said it...


I must confess at this point that other than a few clips I never actually saw Bobby Moore play and so couldn't comment on whether he really was head and shoulders above all else or whether being the Captain of that particular squad in 66 has created a legend. Even leaving Bobby aside if he can be as good as Rio he will have a career to look forward to.


My own hope is that he is simply not for sale this summer and we splash the cash and really try and become a team he thinks he can win something with. If there was a time to go for it it's now. We had a previous moment when we left the Boleyn but didn't take it, I think this time we will have a good go. The owners demonstrated last season end that they didn't want to walk away after the protests and instead spent and hired, I think they will be aware they are not getting any younger and of they want to be the ones to put us on the map it will be now. We have a good manager a good squad to build upon and a potentially world class player in Declan Rice. Gotta be worth a push.

OldCastleSwift

If we're going to look at young Championship players, we may as well just buy Norwich. They've got some quality young players on show tonight. Lewis at left back, Godfrey at centre back, Aarons in midfield.

Would welcome all of those at West Ham.

Cuz1

Better hurry up because soon they going to be premier league players

MrsGrey

I'm always wary about getting too many Championship players. Put them all in your team and you have ... a Championship team.

whupathman

Rumour is that next year we will get more decisions for than against, need to sign up a ref

Hamstew

Rumour is we will only have £30m to spend in the summer. Anymore will depend on player sales.

thornburyiron

Young players don’t count towards squad numbers.

OldCastleSwift

Hamstew said:

Rumour is we will only have £30m to spend in the summer. Anymore will depend on player sales.

I can't see player sales bringing in too much. Our most valuable assets are, IMO, Rice, Anderson and Diop. Sell any of them and I think the owners will be in trouble again.

Arnautovic's value has plummeted since January and we'd be lucky to get our money back on him, and the rest of the squad really aren't the players to attract big money.

Antonio may get £15-18m, but can we afford to let him go? Masuaku may get £10m, but can we replace (and improve on) him for less than that?

Perez may bring in £5-7m, Hernandez £10m, possibly.

I just hope that our transfers in the summer are done with an element of intelligence and long-termism.

Yeoldhammer

30m is a Newcastle "lets try to survive budget" not a "Lets get to the next level budget"

Yeoldhammer

Not sure if we will extend Nasri's contract, seems a massive sick note.

Hamstew

Should stay well away. We need to stop all this.

Whitehorsehammer

The rumours last year were that we would have a budget of £30m. We spent close to £100m. I suspect only the owners really know and anything else is only one rumour or another.

Lukerz

Yeoldhammer said:

30m is a Newcastle "lets try to survive budget" not a "Lets get to the next level budget"

It is for Newcastle because they spend it every summer.

We just spent £100m, so £30m is more like a top up on last years business.

Anyway, there will be some players moving on this summer. Rice & Arnie would basically add £100m to the budget.

ASLEFshrugged

Lukerz said:

Anyway, there will be some players moving on this summer. Rice & Arnie would basically add £100m to the budget.

Only if someone pays £100m for Rice...

claretandbluesky

I would be amazed if that figure of 30m has any reliable source, the owners are usually accused of uptalking summer business to sell season tickets so I cant imagine they would release that figure to anyone even if true.


Personally I would expect around 50m plus sales to be reasonable, sales would be like for like so should we get 20m for Arnie that's what we can replace him with, on top of that the new 50m would pay for two to three reasonable additions, add to this our injured players returning and I feel that squad should be a threat.


In the absence of a real sugar daddy rolling up I think that's about as much as we can hope for and quite reasonable, considering the squad is reasonable.

Bazshuayi

I actually hope we give him the benefit of the doubt re injuries (as he was out for a very long time). He's a class player and if he has a proper pre season he could easily be back in the swing of it next season. He's still at a reasonable age and to buy a player like him would cost us plenty. Besides, theres a big space in the treatment room vacated now AC is on his way :wahoo:

Hamstew

Honestly we need to stop all this. It happens every time.

OldCastleSwift

C&H (often referred to as Sully's online mouthpiece) has said £30m, and Ex has said £25-35m. I suspect it will be in that region.

And frankly that's not enough to keep up with the other mid-size teams looking to push on, IMO.

Fortuneseeker

We spent a lot more than that last summer and we still hadn't been able to properly compete for 7th or have a decent cup run.

grey_til_I_dye

Fortune

But you can't buy a cup run.

We have properly competed for 7th, otherwise people wouldn't be moaning that we haven't got there.

We've had some poor performances/results, but also had no luck with decisions.

The last 2 games alone potentially cost us 5 points, which would have left us 3 behind 7th.

If you factor in another very unlucky run of injuries, we are not as badly off as some people seem to think.

Yeoldhammer

Injuries are just a poor excuse for a club who recruits injury prone players and have had an "injury crisis" most seasons.

The fact is we are closer to 16th than 7th now. We are adrift of the 7th to 10th and are firmly in the 11th to 16th slot. the 11th to 16th slot is the "just enough to survive squad."

There are plenty of other clubs who have had decisions go against them.

We have had one decent season in our last 5 years, the final season at the BG.

alderz

Personally, I've been happy with this season. I've never been worried about relegation, we've had some very good performances, and I've been fortunate enough to miss most of the dross performances.

I've enjoyed the breakthrough of a couple of young players, I've been impressed with some of the signings (Fab, Diop, Anderson, Yarmo).

I agree with Yeold that you can't really use an injury crisis as an excuse when you've signed Yarmolenko (missed the previous 6 months or so before joining us), Wilshere (missed the previous 100 years before joining us), Nasri (out of football for a year). Particularly as most of our injuries aside from those have been to peripheral figures (IMO).

IronHerb

Did Lanzini, Balbuena, Yarmalenko, Sanchez, Fredericks and Byram have previous then?

alderz

Lanzini we already knew was out all season. Yarmolenko had previous. Sanchez was a back up, Fredericks was a back up, Byram has been out on loan all season.

IMO, the big one was Balbuena.