Summer Transfer Speculation (its just two months away)

Slacker

buffybegood said:

Not speculation, at least 4 old boys will be leaving:

West Ham United can confirm that Aaron Cresswell, Łukasz Fabiański, Vladimír Coufal and Danny Ings will leave the Club when their contracts expire at the end of the 2024/25 season.

https://www.whufc.com/news/club-statement-cresswell-fabianski-coufal-and-ings-depart

Three of them have been great servants to West Ham.Ings not so much, I still don’t get why we signed him as we only ever played one striker and apparently he can’t play that role.🤷🏻‍♂️

IronHerb

But Slacker, Sully knew better 🤷‍♂️

Lukerz

Cresswell is the one there who I am most sad about departing. A fantastic player. In reality Coufal & Ings have not really been here that long for me to be too fussed - albeit Coufal contributed a lot for 2-3 years. Fabiański also a sad one to see go after 7/8 years of service.

Yeoldhammer

All of them bar Ings a bit sad about.
But it is time we moved on from all of those players, I would have hoped they included Antonio too, I just don't see him making any sort of return that will have a meaningful contribution to the team.

Would love Antonio in the coaching set up though, alongside Carlton I think they could do wonders for youngsters coming through, especially for young black players coming through, (driving antics aside) I can't think of two better incredible ambassadors for football and role models for young black footballers than Carlton and Antonio personality wise.

buffybegood

Suggestions from one of the posters on KUMB (who I'm pretty sure works for the club in some capacity, or at least has a very good contact within the club) that something is in place for Antonio that:

"won't cost the club any money over the next 6-12 months. Bonkers discussion. Minimal contract/obligation that he is able to use the facilities - treatment.

Non players stuff."

Sounds like the right approach (for once). The club doesn't want to be seen to washing its hands of a loyal servant after a very serious accident, yet neither does it want to be effectively wasting money on a player who, even before his accident, wasn't doing doing enough to be earning a contract extention/new contract.

Antonio has been well rewarded financially for his service over the years, so no need for any sort of sentimental playing contract imo, but good to see that we'll (if the KUMB ITK is correct) continue to look after him through his rehabilitation and beyond. Maybe for once we'll get the balance right 🤞🤞🤞.

ASLEFshrugged

Coufal was our first choice RB for four seasons and last season he played the most minutes in all competitions

Hes going to be a big miss and hard to replace as back up for AWB next season

If they’d given him a new contract instead of activating the 1-year extension he’d have been happy to stay until he retired but we blew that opportunity

claretandbluesky

I agree with all of that. It should have been very simple in just asking if he is happy to stay knowing he will be back up rather than starting, if he says yes then sign him up.

He is exactly what you need in back up as he doesn't know how to give less than 100%, loves the club and by all accounts good in the dressing room.

I imagine Moyes will be in touch with him as he knows his value well.

buffybegood

I think the issue with Coufal was that he had been pushing for a big wage increase for a while, and had constantly been rebuffed; I think he was still on his original signing wage of about 30-32k a week which admittedly is quite low for, what up until that point, had been a regular starting player. Then we would have been faced with increasing his salary (probably significantly if he felt he had been underpaid for a while) to get him to sign a new contract just at the point when he was likely to be relegated to a bench warmer.

So, from a business point of view as of last summer, you can see why we exercised our option to extend his existing contract for another year.

steve

If we get a penalty in our last games ,I want Coufal to come on and take it ,Just like Noble did ,of course that did not work out .But would love coufal to score for us before he leaves

buffybegood

steve said:

If we get a penalty in our last games ,I want Coufal to come on and take it ,Just like Noble did ,of course that did not work out .But would love coufal to score for us before he leaves

Only if the game is completely safe, but yes, it would be nice for him to score.

IronHerb

The game is never ‘completely’ safe if West Ham are involved.

claretandbluesky

IronHerb said:

The game is never ‘completely’ safe if West Ham are involved.

There has never been a truer word than that!

Kuchinghammer

On recent performances, Creswell looks as if he could play top level FOREVER 😮

steve

Really need to keep Soucek .