West Ham United have only just signed defender Kurt Zouma, but reports already suggest that his arrival has caused a problem.
The Sun claim that West Ham players are far from happy with Zouma walking into the club and immediately earning £125,000-a-week.
That’s more than many West Ham players, and it’s suggested that the situation is causing unrest in a tight-knit Hammers squad.
There may be some truth to this, but it sounds like nonsense.
In order for West Ham to move forward, they will have to make deals like this. They have the Europa League to contend with – not every signing can be a Craig Dawson or Albian Ajeti.
At some point, West Ham had to splash some cash to make progress. Zouma represents proven quality in the Premier League and still has his best years ahead of him at 27.
Zouma is a Premier League and Champions League winner – the calibre of player West Ham need to attract if they’re to regularly challenge the top seven.
Additionally, £125,000-a-week is what Dimitri Payet was earning at West Ham, according to Sky Sports in 2017.
Many players in the West Ham squad were playing with Payet at the time; Aaron Cresswell, Angelo Ogbonna, Arthur Masuaku, Declan Rice, Mark Noble, Michail Antonio and Manuel Lanzini were all alongside Payet earning that same amount.
It seems unlikely that those senior players would suddenly have an issue with Zouma being paid the same amount now.
Additionally, 90Min claim that Nikola Vlasic is being paid more than £100,000-a-week too and there isn’t much talk of him causing issues.
If the likes of Pablo Fornals, Tomas Soucek, Michail Antonio and Declan Rice were to sign new deals in the coming weeks, they would likely earn around the £100,000-a-week mark too.
Players want to play with other good players. If spending a little more cash on a couple of players helps take West Ham forward and gets them into Europe every year, they would surely take that.
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