David Sullivan has explained why West Ham failed to sign William Carvalho.
West Ham United co-chairman David Sullivan
West Ham United co-chairman David Sullivan has told the club’s official website that they didn’t have enough time to do a medical for Sporting Lisbon midfielder William Carvalho on deadline day.
The Hammers focused on bringing in Premier League experience over the summer, as Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta, Marko Arnautovic and Javier Hernandez all signed on the dotted line for Slaven Bilic’s men.
Whilst all four were seen as major additions, they have not been able to stop West Ham from losing each of their opening three Premier League games – and many thought that manager Bilic would dip back into the transfer market.
Given injury concerns to Cheikhou Kouyate in the early weeks of the season, West Ham were linked with a number of midfielders, but ultimately did not bring in a new face on deadline day to aid under-fire Bilic.
The strongest link was to Sporting CP midfielder William Carvalho, who has been the subject of strong interest from the Hammers over the last month, though the Portuguese giants are understood to have made things difficult.
A powerful midfielder with a fine range of passing, Carvalho would have brought both brains and brawn to the West Ham midfield, with details emerging over just how close West Ham were to completing a club-record deal fro the 25-year-old this week.
West Ham’s co-chairman David Sullivan has told the club’s official website that their first offer for Calvalho was rejected weeks ago, but Sporting came back to the Hammers on deadline day, admitting that they would accept the first offer West Ham made for theirs tar midfielder.
However, Sullivan claims that there simply wasn’t enough time to complete a medical in the late hours of deadline day, and West Ham didn’t want to risk breaking their transfer record on a player without giving them a thorough medical.
“Overall Slaven is happy with the business we have done during the summer transfer window,” said Sullivan. “We received the manager’s wish-list before the window opened and we have managed to get the top four players on it. It is no secret that we made a club record bid for Sporting Lisbon’s William Carvalho but unfortunately that offer was rejected a couple of weeks ago.”
“Late last night Sporting Lisbon made contact to accept the original offer, but unfortunately it was just too late in the day, and we simply did not have enough time to put the player through a medical. We were not prepared, as a club, to buy a player for that amount of money without him having gone through adequate medical checks,” he added.
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