Summer Transfer Window 2023

Lukerz

I don’t know. I see a lot of Rice’s on the ball qualities with Paqueta; hard to shrug off, strong, good dribbler, drives forward, good passing range, physical, with the added benefit of a slightly better chance of making goals/assists. He doesn’t offer the defensive side as much, although can hold his own, but that may be why Downes was signed.

jay_in_cpt

Luke, you can argue all you want but the reality of it is as we speak right now our squad is IMO in a worse position than it was when the last season ended, yeh, there are a few weeks left to go to the start, but that on it’s own is concerning, no matter how you read it ⚒️

Lukerz

The side did finish 14th with Rice, but also had prolonged periods without Aguerd, Zouma, Cornet, Scamacca, with the likes of Kehrer, Emerson, Paqueta taking time to settle in.

Lukerz

jay_in_cpt said:

Luke, you can argue all you want but the reality of it is as we speak right now our squad is IMO in a worse position than it was when the last season ended, yeh, there are a few weeks left to go to the start, but that on it’s own is concerning, no matter how you read it ⚒️

I didn’t say it wasn’t in a worse position. I just said we aren’t in chaos & if we go into Bournemouth with that squad, it won’t be the end of the world.

Lukerz

Fabianski
Coufal - Zouma - Aguerd - Emerson
Fornals - Soucek - Paqueta
Bowen - Scamacca - Benrahma

Do people believe that side has no chance of beating Bournemouth?

jay_in_cpt

Lukerz said:

jay_in_cpt said:

Luke, you can argue all you want but the reality of it is as we speak right now our squad is IMO in a worse position than it was when the last season ended, yeh, there are a few weeks left to go to the start, but that on it’s own is concerning, no matter how you read it ⚒️

I didn’t say it wasn’t in a worse position. I just said we aren’t in chaos & if we go into Bournemouth with that squad, it won’t be the end of the world.

Of course it won’t be, it hasn’t really been said, let’s just hope the club can pull out some signings in the next couple of weeks otherwise IMO it’s going to be another long, tricky season ahead with a lot of worries till the finish again, we certainly don’t need that as IMO last season was a dire struggle in the league, and now at present we’re in a worse situation that we need to sort out…IMO…

OldCastleSwift

Lukerz said:

jay_in_cpt said:

Luke, you can argue all you want but the reality of it is as we speak right now our squad is IMO in a worse position than it was when the last season ended, yeh, there are a few weeks left to go to the start, but that on it’s own is concerning, no matter how you read it ⚒️

I didn’t say it wasn’t in a worse position. I just said we aren’t in chaos & if we go into Bournemouth with that squad, it won’t be the end of the world.

But who has said we are in chaos?

I've seen plenty say we're a shambles, but nothing about being in chaos.

I think people are just annoyed that we seem to have learnt nothing from the mistakes (mistakes acknowledged by our own manager, by the way) of last summer, and seem to have no plan to mitigate the loss of our best player, despite having a 12-month headstart in finding a suitable and obtainable replacement(s).

OldCastleSwift

Anyway, Palhinha's gone off with a suspected dislocated shoulder in Fulham's pre-season game tonight.

We injure players by association alone these days. Impressive.

EXETERHAMMER

We all know what's gonna happen.

Rice is sold, we can't get any new players over the line till August. They are not involved in pre-season so not match fit to start the season.

Grumpy old me
Repeat...

buffybegood

Lukerz said:

Was Paqueta not bought as a possible Rice replacement, a year early? What about Downes?

Tbh, I think Onana was intended to be the Rice replacement, to be eased into the team. When that sale through, and Paqueta was suddenly available, then we managed to sign him instead. I suspect, if we'd have signed Onana, we wouldn't have been able to afford Paqueta as well.

Ravel49

West Ham are confident of securing a deal to sign Mexico midfielder Edson Alvarez, 25, from Ajax for up to £40m this summer. (Football Insider)

PrestonHammer

Problem with signing him is he's only recently, as in last weekend, finished international duty, so won't be available for a few weeks.

BubblesNeverDies

OldCastleSwift said:

Anyway, Palhinha's gone off with a suspected dislocated shoulder in Fulham's pre-season game tonight.

We injure players by association alone these days. Impressive.

Quote of the year

Lukerz

The issue is that whilst some fans/clubs want the idea of getting business ‘done early’, so players can settle, have a pre-season & be ready to go, the reality is the best deals become available later in the window, when players become desperate to make a decision on their futures & clubs settle for lower fees & loans to get players off the books ahead of the season. In July, everybody is quoting inflated fees & players aren’t fussed one way or the other. There’s always another club who will show interest in the next 6 weeks.

For a club like us, where it appears value for money is important, we are likely to benefit later in August. There is a reason the last couple of weeks are always the busiest. Yes it would mean missing out on any players who other clubs want to sign early, but we don’t have the funds it seems to do that & compete.

I remember players like Zouma, who we couldn’t sign early in the window but then could in the last two weeks of August, same goes for Paqueta.

Hamstew

Hmm this seems to be going around in circles. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we won't sign anyone just that Moyes used the excuse of players taking time to settle last season so if it doesn't work out this time round it will be hard for him to come at the fans with this excuse again.

OldCastleSwift

Hamstew said:

Hmm this seems to be going around in circles. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we won't sign anyone just that Moyes used the excuse of players taking time to settle last season so if it doesn't work out this time round it will be hard for him to come at the fans with this excuse again.

It's exactly this. Signing players later in the window obviously has it's benefits, but when it adversely affects your season - which Moyes acknowledged that it did last season - it's just frustrating that the club seem prepared to make the same mistake again.

mike

Whitehorsehammer

It's exactly this. Signing players later in the window obviously has it's benefits, but when it adversely affects your season - which Moyes acknowledged that it did last season - it's just frustrating that the club seem prepared to make the same mistake again.

But what is the right thing to do, go out and buy players early but probably miss out on better players later and at a better deal? It's the way the systems works. What would you do OCS?

Lukerz

The risk is the better quality players are available later in the window, by which point the budget is blown.

OldCastleSwift

Whitehorsehammer said:

It's exactly this. Signing players later in the window obviously has it's benefits, but when it adversely affects your season - which Moyes acknowledged that it did last season - it's just frustrating that the club seem prepared to make the same mistake again.

But what is the right thing to do, go out and buy players early but probably miss out on better players later and at a better deal? It's the way the systems works. What would you do OCS?



I wouldn't do anything because I'm not involved in the club's decision making. What I'd want the club to do is identify players that are realistic and obtainable a lot earlier than they do.

Take Palhinha, for example. If he is the player that the club believes is the best Rice replacement, why didn't we go for him last season when he was available for £20m, knowing that Rice was going this summer? That, to me, would have been the sensible thing to do. As I said yesterday, he'd have been a short-term upgrade on Soucek and a long-term replacement for Rice.

Or, if Palhinha wasn't in their thoughts until this summer, I'd have wanted them to have spent the last year scouting European football for someone to come in early this summer to immediately mitigate Rice's loss. When you're given a 12-month head-start in trying to find a replacement, I don't think there's any excuse for an elite, professional football club to be as much on the back foot as we appear to be.

Let me ask you a question; will you be happy if we go into the new season without strengthening the midfield and have Moyes say we were unprepared again?

Slacker

Some seem to think it’s easy to bring in new players. How many times do we hear “we’ve lost out AGAIN!” or “why don’t we sign him?”?
It’s not FIFA it’s a multi element trade involving millions of pounds an a myriad of people.
If it was that easy the window would only be open for a week.

Hamstew

I don't see how we can compare this year to last. Our best player has gone and we have a huge gapping hole in the middle of our team. For me it's more of a risk to dilly-dally with regards to that position.

OldCastleSwift

Slacker said:

Some seem to think it’s easy to bring in new players. How many times do we hear “we’ve lost out AGAIN!” or “why don’t we sign him?”?
It’s not FIFA it’s a multi element trade involving millions of pounds an a myriad of people.
If it was that easy the window would only be open for a week.

If the window was open for a week, deals would be done in a week.

The protracted window allows for clubs, players and agents to play games and drag things out. Transfer deadline day is proof that deals can be done quickly. I'm also an advocate of having the window close before the season starts.

PrestonHammer

It most definitely isn't easy but why make it far harder by not identifying players that you either want and that you think are available? Or they have identified plenty of players but between them they can't make a decision. Either way for me it's not good enough.

OldCastleSwift

Lukerz said:

The risk is the better quality players are available later in the window, by which point the budget is blown.

Leaving it late can work. We saw that with Paqueta. Leaving it late can also end up in panic buys. We saw that with the Lingard debacle that ended up with us spending £30m on Vlasic.

No doubt there's a balance to be found, but as Ham says, this isn't a typical window. We've sold our best player and have significantly weakened our midfield with no obvious plan in place to fix it.

Slacker

Preston do you believe that players aren’t identified all year round by all clubs?

Slacker

OldCastleSwift said:

Slacker said:

Some seem to think it’s easy to bring in new players. How many times do we hear “we’ve lost out AGAIN!” or “why don’t we sign him?”?
It’s not FIFA it’s a multi element trade involving millions of pounds an a myriad of people.
If it was that easy the window would only be open for a week.

If the window was open for a week, deals would be done in a week.

I can only dream….

buffybegood

OldCastleSwift said:

I'm also an advocate of having the window close before the season starts.

100% this, although the PL can't really do this in isolation as it was discovered when it was tried. I must admit I don't understand why all the major European leagues aren't in favour of the transfer window closing on say 31st July instead of 31st August, I just don't see a strong argument for it closing after the season has started.

BerlinHammer

Hamstew said:

I don't see how we can compare this year to last. Our best player has gone and we have a huge gapping hole in the middle of our team. For me it's more of a risk to dilly-dally with regards to that position.

I would argue that we have two gapping holes in midfield... unless soucek can get his form back and learn how to pass the ball.

PrestonHammer

Slacker said:

Preston do you believe that players aren’t identified all year round by all clubs?

Other clubs, yes. Our club, no hahaha