West Ham United have signed 31 year old left back Razvan Rat on a free transfer from Shakhtar Dontestk. The number 26 plays for both club and his national Romania on a regular basis after being made captain in 2011 after continually impressing and up to now, he managed 88 caps for Romania, and he is eighth most capped Romanian player of all time.
Rat started out his professional career with Romanian Premier League side Rapid Bucuresti in 1998. In 2003, he was signed by Ukranian club Shakhtar Donetsk, where he became a key player, going on to make 173 appearances scoring 6 goals. His honours include eight league titles, one Romanian Cups, four Ukranian Cups, one UEFA Cup, one Romanian Super cup and three Ukranian Super Cups. In 2009, Rat came second in voting for the Romanian Footballer of the year.
There is no doubting that Rat (I hear some are starting to call him “Steve”), has had a successful career, with highly rated leadership skills and numerous international caps. For the grand total of nothing, the man who turns 32 in 5 days could well be a good addition to the squad, however, it is not exactly forward thinking as Rat is knocking on and has obviously lost a certain something, given Shakhtar are prepared to now let him go for nothing.
Personally, I would prefer to put money towards a younger player, creating a future for the club, not just a quick fix, with Joey O’Brien remaining in contention for a game too. Although Rat appears to be a player we crave, with leadership qualities and trophies to his name, at almost 32, I’m not sure he’d have been on my transfer wish list (along with once great, now outdated, Ambrosini).
Just a footnote to wish Carlton Cole luck in his future career, as on his day he is unplayable, and fuelled with confidence a manager who plays to his strengths will hopefully get the best out of him once again.
Danny Potts is still young, between O’Brien and “Steve” they should be able to help him develop his game.
i think it is perfect as we try to build ourselves in the top league in the world first, and Andy Carol should part of our team, WE WANT IT TO BE HAMMER TIME, younger players need to be groomed into the team like POTTY POTTS, and the right time will come for them
As much I would love homegrown youngsters to be the base of our team I can understand why this is not the case.
Where in the Premiership are these homegrown youngsters flooding teams? Or getting opportunities week in week out?
The truth is, most of us have a foot firmly placed in the past and feel that the Academy & West Ham Way is Our blueprint to success. Unfortunately things have changed and we DON’T have a monopoly over the increasingly small number of talented youngsters who are coming into the game.
I’ve heard countless supporters screaming about some of our youngsters saying that they are good enough and should be given a chance. I’d like to ask some questions. Where are Montano, Hines, Stanislas & Lee??? These guys were meant to have a BIG future at the club and when Big Sam let them go, some supporters castigated him over this. Has he been proved wrong???…..Of course he hasn’t!
Why??? Because he is an experienced manager who works with the players day in day out and he is the one trusted to make these decisions by the board. If these players that have been released by the club played, it would’ve weakened the team and we probably wouldn’t have gained promotion and if we did, we would’ve gone straight back down. You CAN’T have it both ways and as far as I’m concerned he can carry on doing the job he is doing because I have come to trust his judgement and believe year on year he will build this club and put us back where we belong!
This is a different era and we have to create a different blueprint from the ground up to move forward to where we want to be.
COYI