West Ham aren’t learning from past transfer window mistakes

One can be forgiven for making initial declarations of admiration, even if they are unrequited. But once a relationship proposal has been rebuffed, it’s often advisable to let it go.

Unless you have gone through a full makeover and have something more alluring to offer, then a puerile pursuit is only ever going to reek of desperation.

And so with Romelu Lukaku, the management need to let it go, and accept West Ham is not nearly an attractive enough proposition.

After the Belgium striker rejected a move to East London last summer, in favour of playing the season at Everton, the club should have deleted his number and not dwelt on thoughts of ‘what might have been’.

A year on, despite all the rhetoric around becoming a more attacking team, West Ham are no better off than they were, and are no more alluring to a now proven performer.

The board should realise nothing has of yet been perked up, and the club needs a bit of a nip and a tuck before it can start attracting players of the highest calibre.

That’s not to say the players that have been linked are not going to improve the team, it’s just Messrs Gold and Sullivan need to ensure they are chasing the right sort of talent.

The risk is they haven’t learnt their lessons in the transfer market. There is a fear of making the same mistake as last season, and there is a concern some have lost track of what that mistake was.

It wasn’t that the club failed to sign a striker per se; it was that the policy led to a situation where the club failed to recruit sufficient cover in a certain position.

The board has already secured a striker to add strength to the front line. There now needs to be focus on getting more cover at the back.

Learning from last season doesn’t mean becoming besotted with the idea of buying strikers such as Lukaku, it means building a balanced squad with competition for places.

Having released defensive cover in Roger Johnson, George McCartney,Pablo Armero and Jordan Spence, the club needs to recruit the across the field.

Where last season an injury often cost the team goals up front, the already apparent shortage at the back also cost them two humiliating cup defeats, amongst others.

The board needs to realise the club is not yet the appealing option it wants to be, and the planned makeovers off the pitch, around the stadium and badge, need to be mirrored on the field to ensure superstars will find the proposition of playing in claret and blue irresistible.