Transfer Speculation (1st June onwards)

OldCastleSwift

Claret & Hugh reiterating that Moyes has between £40m-£50m to spend, and also starting the engine of the bus that he may yet be thrown under:

https://www.claretandhugh.info/

"A very senior source told me at the end of the season that Mickey is now probably a 20 game a season player at best given those hamstrings and that the club HAD to bring in a striker."

I would imagine, given his relationship with C&H, the 'very senior source' is Sullivan, who has probably tried to tempt Moyes with one of his 'gifts' that both Allardyce and Bilic have referenced in the past, which Moyes has so far refused.

But the article makes it clear who this particular site will blame should we fail to sign a striker.

IronHerb

Same as no way an Agent would want £5m?

Fortuneseeker

The Sun, yes I know, claim Zouma wants only
£120k a week but we aren’t willing to pay him that.

ianbishoplegend

I would love Hughes from Watford. Something a little bit of the Bish about his game

OldCastleSwift

Like Herbie says, if you pay Zouma £120k p/w, the likes of Rice and Soucek will be looking for parity. Yes, Zouma's won a few trophies, but he's not been a regular for Chelsea over the years and has only 8 international caps. Granted, he'd be our No1 centre back, but no more important to the team than Rice, Soucek, Benrahma etc.

Another reason why Milenkovic may have made more sense. He's reported to be on £24k p/w at Fiorentina, so even if we trebled is wages he'd still cost £10m less in wages than Zouma over a four year contract.

Lukerz

Zouma’s just won a Champions League. At the end of the day, right or wrong, he will expect a decent salary & who are we to say Rice deserves more when Rice has won nothing?

ScotHammer

Lukerz said:

No way does he want £130k

…….and we shouldn’t pay it to him anyway!

OldCastleSwift

Lukerz said:

Zouma’s just won a Champions League. At the end of the day, right or wrong, he will expect a decent salary & who are we to say Rice deserves more when Rice has won nothing?

Man's on £46k p/w right now. £75k p/w would be a more than decent salary for him. I get he has a CL medal, but is that alone worth a £70k p/w pay rise? Nah, not for me.

And Rice is our captain, our best and most important player and has a higher ceiling than Zouma. IMO, if anyone deserves £120k p/w at West Ham, it's him, irrespective of what he has or hasn't won.

Lukerz

True but according to reports, Rice has turned down contract offers. Those offers are said to have made him our highest earning player. If he turns them down, I don’t think we therefore don’t offer money to anybody else, on the basis Rice will be on less.

OldCastleSwift

Lukerz said:

True but according to reports, Rice has turned down contract offers. Those offers are said to have made him our highest earning player. If he turns them down, I don’t think we therefore don’t offer money to anybody else, on the basis Rice will be on less.

I'm not sure Rice turning down the new contract has much to do with the money being offered. I think it's more around where we're going as a club. If he feels we can't match his ambition in the long-term, then why would he commit to a longer contract and knowingly make himself more expensive?

I've no doubt that if he thought we were genuine CL and trophy-winning contenders, he'd have signed the deal by now.

But I take your point; and I have no issue with giving Zouma a top-end salary, but £120k p/w is too much for him, IMO.

claretandbluesky

If Zouma was worth 120k per week I would hope he would be able to get in the Chelsea team, If he is on 60k then it would appear 80k to be a reasonable offer.

I think all of these deals will happen, if they do, at only the last day or two as everyone wants to appear able to walk away in order to pressurise the other party.

PrestonHammer

If things couldn't get any worse, Antonio could be playing 8 games for Jamaica between now and the end of the year.

alderz

PrestonHammer said:

If things couldn't get any worse.

Do you really think things are that bad? We finished 6th last year, we’re in the Europa league group stage for the first time in our history, and we just won 4-2 away against a team that did the double over us last year.

jay_in_cpt

Think Preston has made a fair point.
He IMO was referring to our dire situation with strikers or rather lack of them.
He is right, if Antonio does play for the reggae boys we will be in trouble if no one else is signed ( I trust they will be ) but as we speak, zilch…

Slacker

I pop in here now and again and when I looked at this thread yesterday there were 33 new posts.” Ooh, looks like things are warming up, who’ve we signed?” I thought.
Nope, just more “ itk “ alleged stuff about player and agents demands.

I might leave it a while.

alderz

re 'as if things couldn't get any worse'


People on here, on social media, all over the show are talking like we have Avram as our manager still. We just had the best season in my memory, and the transfer window isn’t even closed yet. Come September, once the windows closed, I agree that a lack of signings will hurt us. But I don’t get the concern at this point, coming off the season we just had.

EXETERHAMMER

I just want us to at least consolidate and cope with extra games in Europe. A striker plus CB essential.

Lukerz

Areola
Johnson - Diop - Baptiste
Fredericks - Coventry - Noble - Masuaku
Yarmolenko - Lanzini
Bowen

That would be the side as it stands, in Europe, should Moyes not want to risk first team regulars. Not to mention Okoflex may also be involved the form he is showing.

It won’t go far, you’d imagine, but we have a side we can field in those extra 6 games if we wanted to protect the first 11 (or a mixture of first 11 players & the ones above).

This is not what I want us to do, but I am just saying Moyes can do it.

Lukerz

I am surprised Moyes has not made another offer for Tarkowski. He seemed desperate for him last summer (3 reported bids), they’ve just lost their first game, Burnley have signed a new CB & Tarkowski has a year left on his deal.

buffybegood

Lukerz said:

I am surprised Moyes has not made another offer for Tarkowski. He seemed desperate for him last summer (3 reported bids), they’ve just lost their first game, Burnley have signed a new CB & Tarkowski has a year left on his deal.

Yeah, this wouldn't surprise me at all, as a kinda under the radar type signing. I did read that Burnley would let him run down his contract and let him go for nothing, but who knows if that is accurate.

Lukerz

Yeah just reading back, we made 3 offers, the highest being £31m - £25m up front with £6m in bonus payments. I just find it odd that we then surrendered the chase, signed Dawson on loan & haven’t revisited the deal a year on (I’d understand if we now didn’t want a CB).

Since then he has lost a year on his contract, they finished 4th bottom & we qualified for Europe. I would have thought Moyes would prefer Tarkowski over some of the overseas options we have been linked with, given he is PL experienced.

claretandbluesky

Makes a lot of sense and 20m should do it. I don't think they will let him go too cheaply last year of contract or not, as they know he could make the difference to their survival.

BubblesNeverDies

Alderz, you can disagree as much as you like.

Preston said "If things couldn't get any worse, Antonio could be playing 8 games for Jamaica between now and the end of the year."

It's blindingly obvious he's referring to the risk of Antonio getting injured with all these potential extra games.

Whitehorsehammer

Bubbles, I think it was the opening part of what Preston said, I read that and though "What?" To suggest things were so bad is the opposite of how I see us at the moment. Yes we would all like to see some signings but surely the time to Judge the window is the day after it closes, not before.

IronHerb

So how dire are things now then, irrespective of Antonio playing any extra games?

alderz

BubblesNeverDies said:

Alderz, you can disagree as much as you like.

Ok, thank you.

jay_in_cpt

IronHerb said:

So how dire are things now then, irrespective of Antonio playing any extra games?

I quoted 'dire' in respect to only having a excellent yet very injury prone striker as our ONLY recognisable striker ( a made into one in fact ).

If people don't think that is a dire situation at this moment, then I think you need to think a little bit harder.

Come the end of the window it might look better ( as per my quoted original post ).

PrestonHammer

By worse I meant we haven't signed any first team signings apart from Areola, we've needed another striker option for the last 7 months and it seems we are nowhere near, we might be, but going on what we know, we're not and then to top it off, if Antonio is possibly going to play another 8 games, although he'll probably be injured before then.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

Things could still be worse. We have Antonio, who I wouldn’t swap for many other strikers when he is fit (I know, he isn’t always fit).

We also have goals right across the midfield.

Please, nobody needs to point out to me that Antonio is injury prone and we need cover. I completely agree with that. But things could definitely be worse.

steve

And they have been worse in the past