West Ham United were the 10th highest spenders in the summer.
Hammers vice-chairman Karren Brady explained how expectations at West Ham are extremely high following the summer’s transfer spend, when writing her column for the Sun, but her comments prove that both her and the club’s owners are way out of touch with the reality of the modern day game.
She wrote:
“Expectations at the London Stadium are far higher than that. We spent £45m in the summer buying experience in defence and goal threat in attack. Neither manifested itself.”
Slaven Bilic spent close to £45 million on acquiring new talent at the London Stadium in the summer, including exciting new arrivals such as Javier Hernandez, Marko Arnautovic and Sead Haksabanovic.
Joe Hart joined on loan, whilst Pablo Zabaleta arrived in east London on a free transfer.
Whilst all of those names seem to be useful signings on paper, closer inspection highlights that most of them are past their best, and have entered the twilight years of their career.
It also must be mentioned that £45 million is actually not an extortionate amount of money to spend – nine clubs spent more in the summer.
Watford spent £10 million more than the Hammers. Leicester City spent £33 million more, and Everton more than trebled West Ham’s summer outlay.
Click HERE to read Richard Keys’ warning for West Ham
You cannot claim to be an ambitious club, with intent of challenging towards the top of the league when you are spending relatively paltry amounts of money on investing in the playing squad.
David Moyes is now in charge at the London Stadium, and it will be interesting to see whether he receives financial backing in the January transfer window, just like he has been promised, because without further investment, West Ham look to be doomed.
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