Transfer Speculation

alderz

Sure, but, as C&Bsky said, you can’t really prove it as such. I personally think that Slavia should be kicked out of Europe after what their fans did. UEFA needs to take a stronger stance on racism, and whether or not they feel they can ban the Slavia player they can 100% do something to club based on the actions of their fans.

MrsGrey

Fortuneseeker said:

Playing “devils” here but hasn’t someone got to investigate how the accused Slavia Prague player got attacked in the tunnel after the final whistle. The club have already condemned the actions of a small group of their supporters who have acted in a racist fashion.

Not sure what you mean about devils advocate?

Isn't that usually making a case/argument that tests the truth/strength of the opposing one?

So we have 'player accused of racist remarks' ... player attacked in tunnel.

How does the latter 'test' the validity of the former.

They can both be true, surely? They a both be wrong, surely. It's not a zero sum.

claretandbluesky

Well this is what i would do were I in charge of Slavia.

State very clearly that the club opposes Racism in all forms and wont tolerate it from players or Fans.

Offer all support to a Uefa enquiry and punish according to their findings

Should their findings be inconclusive I would ban the player from the next round and fine him for cupping his mouth when speaking to an opposing player stating that there is no need to do this unless his intention is to hide what is being said, racist or not his intention was clearly to cause offence and abuse. Unless he is discussing tactics (obviously not) or discussing his next transfer (see Rice and Mcguire ) there is no reason at all for this and it has prevented the truth of having chance of being established. You are now punishing him without condemning as racist. It hopefully sends a high profile message regard such situations.

OutcastLondoner

MrsGrey said:

I agree to a point.. but think we have to treat people as individuals. I don't think it's right to say 'all the players are racists' if the club itself is soft on racism.

Isn't that just as discriminatory - lumping everyone (all players) together based on one commonality (work for the same organisation)?

I don’t think it’s just as discriminatory. It would be another form of discrimination but not equal.

But anyway that wasn’t what I was suggesting. I was talking about how we deal with the club rather than the players. If Slavia don’t take action against their fans, and their player if he is found guilty, then I’m uncomfortable in us continuing what is a sort of informal relationship with them. Though we have benefited massively from signing their players I assume there have been big profits from them. I wouldn’t want our relationship to be linked with theirs but more than that I would want us to take a stance.

OutcastLondoner

I think they should ban those fans, not criticise them. Any premier league club would be expected to.

Fortuneseeker

Apologies Mrs G, I didn’t use the right term. 👍. UEFA don’t have a good record on dealing with racism. Weren’t Manchester City
fined more for not playing the Champions League anthem than the Bulgarian FA for the racist incidents when England played there? I reckon there is more to come out of what happened at Ibrox on Thursday from both sides.

MrsGrey

OutcastLondoner said:

I think they should ban those fans, not criticise them. Any premier league club would be expected to.

Any overt and/or explicit racist stuff from fans - chants, banners, tweets whatever - anything in the public domain. I agree - lifetime ban. (Over 18 only, though)

alderz

MrsGrey said:

OutcastLondoner said:

I think they should ban those fans, not criticise them. Any premier league club would be expected to.

Any overt and/or explicit racist stuff from fans - chants, banners, tweets whatever - anything in the public domain. I agree - lifetime ban. (Over 18 only, though)

Why over 18 only? I get that kids made mistakes or whatever, but I don’t think it matters the age for this.

ASLEFshrugged

UEFA investigating, both players are sticking by their stories and both teams are backing their players.

Slavia president described the actions of "some radical fans" as "absolutely disgusting, pathetic and racist". A criminal complaint has been made against those involved (if they can be identified from the Instagram post)

Slavia have also made a criminal complaint against Kamara for the alleged assault on Kudela in the tunnel

Before we all get on our high horses lets remember that just about every team has racists among their supporters, we certainly have our fair share of idiots (especially when we play Spurs).

As its Sunday John 8:7 "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone"

MrsGrey

alderz said:

MrsGrey said:

OutcastLondoner said:

I think they should ban those fans, not criticise them. Any premier league club would be expected to.

Any overt and/or explicit racist stuff from fans - chants, banners, tweets whatever - anything in the public domain. I agree - lifetime ban. (Over 18 only, though)

Why over 18 only? I get that kids made mistakes or whatever, but I don’t think it matters the age for this.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I think the u18s should've banned too. I was just saying not a life ban... I think they deserve a second chance.

Now I've explained, you might still not agree ;-) but as least it's clearer what you're disagreeing with.

Lukerz

Shane Duffy dropped to the bench for Celtic’s game v Rangers. Can’t even make it in the SPFL. Thank goodness we ended up with Craig Dawson instead of him.

BubblesNeverDies

Lingard's loan to West Ham seems to have resurrected his career, at least for the moment, although a lot depends on how he continues. He is really enjoying playing and playing so well that IMO Manure would be mad to let him go.
At the end of this loan spell, he only has another year left of his ManU contract, so I imagine OGS will have to make his mind up quickly.

If however, he still doesn't figure in OGS's plans what are the chances that he would stay here providing of course that G&S cough up the transfer fee which I imagine is increasing by the day. Would he be happy to come here?
I for one think he's the most gifted player I've seen at West Ham since Payet and would be very disappointed to see him go.

OldCastleSwift

I think he'll stay if the board can convince him that we can consistently challenge for the top 6. He wants to play every game, which he won't get at your Man City's, Man Utd's and Chelsea's, so we have to aim to be the best of the rest. Leicester and Everton are probably our biggest threats in that respect, but I would hope that the fact that West Ham took the chance on him and that Moyes and the players have confidence in him, may be enough for him to want to stay.

Investment, not necessarily in terms of how much we spend but certainly how we spend it, will be key in keeping hold of Lingard, Rice and Soucek. Get it right, and these players will be more inclined to stay put and help build something, IMO.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

As good as he's been, he's never going to be a guaranteed starter at United with Rashford, Martial, Greenwood and possibly Sancho all competing for the wings

So the real question are these
1. How much will United want, he's playing like a £50mil player atm but this does seem to be a purple patch, plus he's only get a year left....so think if they ask for more than £20mil that'll seem ability much
2. Could Everton or Leicester maybe try to pinch him...as I can't see them selling to the other big 6 (yes even arsenal and spurs as financially they can compete with united better than Leicester/Everton could)

yoyo

I've read in some reports that he's happy here and popular, which is a good sign that he could possibly seriously consider us. BBC reporting we're interested in Aaron Ramsey. I'm not sure where all these middle/wideplayers are going to fit it

OutcastLondoner

I think we need another central player but not Aaron Ramsey. Someone with a bit of strength and energy, who can both cover Soucek/Rice and offer something different if we need a third.

alderz

Doesn’t Ramsey earn like £350k a week or something?

IronHerb

That's because he was a free transfer after running down his contract at Arsenal.

OutcastLondoner

How much does that add on though? I doubt he's going to drop his salary by £250k, which would still be too much for a player who's often injured.

BubblesNeverDies

Another mark against Ramsey is his age, he's just turned 30, which is getting on a bit for a box-to-box midfielder or winger and neither does it fit Moyes's aim for younger players.

MrsGrey

Fantasy football legend, though

IronHerb

OutcastLondoner said:

How much does that add on though? I doubt he's going to drop his salary by £250k, which would still be too much for a player who's often injured.

Lots imo. He takes the transfer fee as a signing on fee and enhanced wages. Sanchez was reputedly on over £500k at Man U due to the deflated £25m transfer fee.

Don't want him anyway.

claretandbluesky

It never seems to work out when we buy a player who has been great but either has injury issues or past it. I think experience would tell us to give this one a miss. Surely Wilshire is too fresh in the memory.

If we have ambition instead of buying past great players lets keep the ones we have brought through this time. We must do all we can to keep Rice. Lampard, Cole, Ferdinand, Carrick, Defoe, Johnson were all grade A players that we sold. If we want to improve we simply must retain. This season we have a platform to show Rice he should stay and that West Ham are a club he can achieve at.

If Rice goes it will serve as a reason for any other player to leave if a better offer arrives as they will see we don't have ambition.

In my view offer Rice a good new contract and if he isn't keen keep him anyway for next season. Buy Lingard if he is happy and invest whatever we have in a striker as priority. It would be good to have further funds for defence but Cresswell has been good, Coufal excellent, Dawson proved himself more than back up and Masuaku is back for next season, the defence has been much better than on paper at the beginning of the year,

baracks_a_hammer

claretandbluesky said:

It never seems to work out when we buy a player who has been great but either has injury issues or past it. I think experience would tell us to give this one a miss. Surely Wilshire is too fresh in the memory.

So when was Wilshere ever “great”?

claretandbluesky

I think he had great early periods in which he would have got into any team here and most abroad. The injuries ended his career effectively. He was capped 34 times for England in an Arsenal shirt despite injuries. Incidentally the only players capped more whilst in a West Ham shirt are as follows.

Trevor Brooking 47
Geoff Hurst 49
Bobby Moore 108

baracks_a_hammer

I’m not convinced England caps are a barometer either? Because, say, Eric Dier has 45 caps for England and will probably eclipse both brooking and hurst - would that place him higher than those two? I would argue not.

Wilshere I would say is a very talented player. But “Great”? No, not for me.

thornburyiron

Also in the Moore Hurst and possibly part of the Brooking era caps were awarded for tournaments and grouped matches not individual matches and only the 11 playing got them. Today you can come on in the 94th minute, not kick the ball and still get a cap.
Certainly by today’s criterium players like Moore, Charlton etc would have probably got 2-300 caps.

ASLEFshrugged

ASLEFshrugged said:

Somebody scout that Mislav Orsic, anyone who can out three past Spurs has to be worth a look

As if by magic Footballer Insider claim that "A West Ham source" told them we have made contact with Dinamo Zagreb this week over a potential summer deal. The Times claim that Arsenal would also be interested in Orsic if they can't sign Odegaard.

I can only see this if we can't sign Lingard. The Sun reckons we want to pay £15m-£20m but Man U want more.

In the other direction the Express reckons that Pochettino wants to bring Lanzini to PSG instead of Dele Alli because Poch and Mourinho don't get on (what a surprise!)

Football Insider claims PSG tried to sign Lanzini in January but Moyes didn't want to be left short. If its true then

Lukerz

baracks_a_hammer said:

I’m not convinced England caps are a barometer either? Because, say, Eric Dier has 45 caps for England and will probably eclipse both brooking and hurst - would that place him higher than those two? I would argue not.

Wilshere I would say is a very talented player. But “Great”? No, not for me.

See is this not simply sorted? Don’t you just remove all friendly caps & only count major tournament games as a barometer? That’s what I do.

Take Eric Dier & minus off all his friendly games. If you want to be really selective, take away his qualifier caps as well.

Gives you a better idea. Eric Dier has 10 major tournament England caps. So does Harry Kane. Bobby Moore has 16. David Beckham has 20, Steven Gerrard 21.

These numbers are always going to be low, but reorders the players in a more reflective way of contribution to England.

baracks_a_hammer

A bit controversial, but if we failed to sign lingard if his fee is too high AND we also fail to qualify for Europe this season, would the whole exercise of having him at West Ham have even been worth it?