West Ham United needed a striker to boost their Premier League hopes in 1994 but AC Milan legend Andriy Shevchenko never arrived at Upton Park.
Harry Redknapp has admitted that West Ham United missed out on the chance to sign a young Andriy Shevchenko long before he blossomed into a world-class centre-forward at AC Milan, while speaking to Sky Sports.
Exactly ten years prior to the Ukrainian goal-machine lifting the Ballon d’Or on the back of a 28-goal season for the seven-time European, he was finding the net for West Ham during a friendly clash with Barnet’s reserve side.
But Premier League clubs were not quite as flush with the cash in the mid-90s as they are in the modern era.
And Redknapp, who spent seven years on the Upton Park touchline between 1994 and 2001, believes that West Ham had little choice but to walk away from a deal to sign a future footballing superstar. At £1 million, he was just too expensive.
“We got a phone call from some proper chaps round the East End. They were doing lots of business in Russia and Ukraine. They said ‘we can get you a couple of players over here, the best ones, for you to have a look at,” Redknapp told Sky’s Transfer Talk Podcast.
“Two players came over, and a game was fixed up with Barnet reserves. Shevchenko got two goals. We liked him but he was something like a million pound. I remember saying ‘it’s too much money’.”
West Ham would go on to endure a disappointing 1994/95 campaign, netting just 44 goals in 42 Premier League games (these were the days before the 38-match season). They could certainly have done with Shevchenko back then.
Five years on, the former Dinamo Kiev talisman made the move to the San Siro and the rest, as they say, is history.
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