West Ham United have been extremely busy this summer, which is reminiscent of another Premier League club last year.
New West Ham boss Manuel Pellegrini has wasted little time putting his own stamp on his new team, bringing in seven new faces to the London Stadium so far.
The Hammers have completed deals for Issa Diop, Lukasz Fabianski, Ryan Fredericks, Jack Wilshere, Andriy Yarmolenko, Felipe Anderson and Fabian Balbuena, at a combined cost of just under £100million.
And it might not stop there, with Juventus star Stefano Sturaro’s agent singling out the Irons to Juvenews and L’Equipe reporting that Lille midfielder Thiago Mendes is a target, with Pedro Obiang reportedly keen on a return to Italy.
It’s a huge overhaul and many West Ham supporters are understandably getting excited at the prospect of watching a season that might not include a relegation battle at the end of it.
But it does have to be said, we saw Everton do somthing very similar this time one year ago, and the Toffees made an extremely poor start to the 2017/18 campaign under then-manager Ronald Koeman.
Koeman signed Davy Klaassen, Cuco Martina, Wayne Rooney, Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Sandro Ramirez, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Nikola Vlasic amongst others, and the new players really struggled to gel.
They played like a team of strangers and that is a danger facing West Ham. Their business has been impressive on the face of it, but there is a chance that the balance and cohesion simply won’t be there in the very beginning.
Admittedly, West Ham’s business this year is better than Everton’s last, but it’s still going to be mightily important for Pellegrini to ensure that his new recruits are all on the same wavelength and to get some momentum going right from the off – something the Toffees failed to do miserably.
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