Like before, relegation from the Premier League obviously meant that West Ham would be losing players. One of the first out was Manuel Da Costa, who despite playing well last season decided to move on and the unpopular Kovac who rarely started followed the Portuguese defender out. The wage bill continued to be cut when Kieran Dyer and Danny Gabbidon both moved on to QPR and Matthew Upson joined Stoke City. Players leaving the club didn’t stop there, with Thomas Hitzlsperger and Luis Boa Morte both leaving and are still available as free agents. However the biggest loss was a player who was a huge hit with the fans in his short time at the Boleyn, and that was Demba Ba who joined Newcastle United on a free after a clause in his contract was activated.
There were several other players linked with moves away following the drop to the Championship, and quite frankly more important players, players like Robert Green, Mark Noble, James Collison and of course, Scott Parker. However good news has recently come out of Upton Park and that is that a new contact has been signed by the extremely talented Jack Collison which is a positive for the whole team. Furthermore Green today has opened up contract talks and Noble also looks to be staying after no significant bids were made for the English midfielder. The on-going speculation surrounding Scott Parker’s future, has seemingly disappeared and it looks as though the mighty Hammers will win the battle to maintain their key players.
Despite the positives of holding onto the aforementioned players, the ones that have left need to be replaced for West Ham to have a real promotion push and in this writer’s humble opinion, there isn’t a better manager to get Premier League standard players into a Championship club than Sam Allardyce; Big Sam has been our best signing. The first player brought for The Irons was an experienced centre half, which with the departure of Upson this was vital and that was Abdoulaye Faye who was a free agent after being released by Stoke City. The next signing showed some serious intent of promotion when West Ham completed the signing of Newcastle captain and now West ham captain Kevin Nolan for £4.5 million. This was a surprising but excellent signing for Allardyce’s side, with Nolan having scored 18 goals during the season he played in the Championship for Newcastle. The former Blackburn Rovers manager wasn’t finished with his old club Bolton and took Joey O’Brien on trial and eventually signed the Republic of Ireland international, as well as acquiring Matty Taylor, who will no doubt create and score a lot of goals from dead ball situations. The most recent signings by Allardyce were 6ft5 Norwegian striker John Carew who was released by Aston Villa, despite scoring nearly 40 goals for the Villains, and most recently George McCartney rejoined on loan from Sunderland.
The signings made by Big Sam, as well as the players already in the squad, mean there is no reason why West Ham United can’t return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
The fans need to get behind the players and management and let’s see West ham back into the top flight!
Without ever seeing Faye play I’m still pretty confident we got the best out of (effectively) swapping him for Upson 🙂
I agree that the only player to go so far that we’ll really miss is Ba, although I’m very surprised that Hitzlsperger has not found a club yet.
The new signings have been excellent. They’ve all made an immediate impact,except Faye, who hasn’t had a chance. Great to see George McCartney come back too.
As for Parker, stay or go, I’ll be glad when the transfer window is closed.
a good article, and as a Hammer, I agree we have every reason to be positive. The players who have left…. to a man, if l’m honest, l’m glad to see the back of them, and that includes Ba and Hitzlsperger, after all, the club put faith in them, Ba when nobody else would touch him and Hitz for half a season after picking up his injury playing for Germany, so l say good riddance to bad rubbish. Sam Allerdyce isn’t my favourite manager and would never have been on my list as a Hammers manager, but when you consider who we could have had, he’s the best man for the job, by a street….and he’s assembling a squad that some Premier League managers would love to have. I agree with Paul, all the signings are positive and the departures, so far, also positive. All bodes well me thinks 🙂