Do West Ham United get enough credit for Fabian Balbuena and Lukasz Fabianski deals?
It’s perfectly plausible to suggest that West Ham United could finish the calendar year sixth in the Premier League table, which would be amazing.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side lost their first four Premier League games but, fast forward a few months, the Irons are now enjoying a four-match winning streak.
And it could get a lot better very shortly, considering that West Ham close the year with games against Watford, Southampton and Burnley – all three being very winnable.
The Hammers, who sit two points behind rudderless Manchester United in sixth, spent over £100 million last summer, so a good season was demanded.
But you could argue that two of their best players were signed for peanuts in the grand scheme of things.
Everybody is talking about the B word since Xherdan Shaqiri’s heroics for Liverpool on Sunday, and the Swiss, a £13 million signing last summer, is undeniably a bargain.
Then again, so are Lukasz Fabianski and Fabian Balbuena.
Pellegrini picked up those two for a combined £10.5 million – £3.5 million for Balbuena [Daily Star] and £7 million for the Polish keeper [Evening Standard] – and although they don’t have the profile of Shaqiri, they have been better for West Ham this season than the 27-year-old has been for Liverpool.
It’s a shame because there’s a tendency to judge a club’s transfer window on how their most expensive signings perform, the likes of Felipe Anderson and Issa Diop in this case.
Both of those have done very well to be fair, but Fabianski and Balbuena are arguably the real stars for West Ham this season, even if they don’t get credit for it.
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