West Ham will go into transfer overdrive on Friday when David Sullivan holds talks with Manuel Pellegrini over the club’s summer recruitment, according to a club insider.
Ex-WHU Employee, who is a very reliable source of Hammers news, revealed on the West Ham Way podcast broadcast on Phoenix FM on Wednesday night (30:20) that co-owner Sullivan will thrash out the club’s principal targets with new boss Pellegrini before the squad returns to pre-season training next week.
West Ham have already signed three players this summer and are in hot pursuit of Lazio’s Felipe Anderson but a signing blitz is expected in the final month-and-a-half of the window.
“The reason I can’t say who we’re going to concretely pursue other than Anderson is that Pellegrini was meant to be meeting with Sullivan on Monday but it’s been postponed to Friday,” Ex-WHU Employee told the podcast. “That Sullivan meeting, with Pellegrini and his backroom staff, is when the concrete targets really start to be put into place and pursued.”
OPINION
What is certain is that it is still Sullivan pulling the transfer strings. Was the appointment of Mario Husillos as the new director of football simply a political one to shield the under-fire co-owner from further fan criticism? It appears that way, with anecdotal reports revealing that it was Sullivan spearheading the deals for Issa Diop, Ryan Fredericks and Lukasz Fabianski – the three signings already in the bag – as well as the on-off transfer of Anderson. Will he cede control to Pellegrini and Husillos over the next six weeks? Don’t bet on it. Old habits die hard and Sullivan appears to love the thrill of the transfer chase more than most. Will he be content sitting on the sidelines waiting for updates from the two south Americans? Most West Ham fans, fed up of the lowball bids and big claims failing to be actioned, won’t raise their hopes too much on that count.
