West Ham co-owner David Gold took to Twitter to respond to Adrian Durham claiming that West Ham could challenge for a top-four finish in the Premier League in the 2019/20 season.
Durham had previously shared that he thought the Hammers could make up significant ground on the sides who finished in the top four in the 2018/19 season as long as they kept their best players.
“Those teams that are in the top six, I don’t think four of them are that great,” said the broadcaster, as quoted by talkSPORT.
“I’m fascinated to see what happens next season.
“West Ham won 15 of their 38 games, I expect them to win more than that.
“They got 52 points last season, top four was 71. It’s a huge amount of points they’ve got to make up, I get that.
“I think [they can do it], with a super-human effort, if they keep [Declan] Rice, [Issa] Diop and [Felipe] Anderson.”
While Durham’s remarks showed the faith he had in West Ham’s current squad, Gold responded to Durham’s claim to share he thought the broadcaster was trying to compliment the board, but simply didn’t know how.
Talk Sports Adrian Durham believes West Ham can challenge for a place in the Premier League top four next season.
I think he is he’s trying to complement the Board but doesn’t quite know how to do ‘complements’ dg pic.twitter.com/j5Ei0DxjZ2— David Gold (@davidgold) June 22, 2019
“Talk Sports Adrian Durham believes West Ham can challenge for a place in the Premier League top four next season. I think he is he’s trying to complement (compliment) the Board but doesn’t quite know how to do ‘complements’ (compliments) dg,” wrote Gold via his personal Twitter account.
OPINION
It’s odd that Gold hasn’t lapped up Durham saying that West Ham could be well on their way to being a top-four side, as surely that is music to his ears? After all, it’s quite a surprising and bold claim as the Hammers finished 10th in their latest season, a notable 19 points behind London rivals Tottenham who finished fourth. Yet Gold instead of appearing happy, appeared to have a bee in his bonnet that Durham didn’t directly heap praise on him. Granted the businessman alongside fellow Hammers owner David Sullivan have overseen the club do something fantastic business in recent transfer windows, see Issa Diop and Felipe Anderson for more information, but it’s a team effort; the club’s potential success is not just because of the club’s owners. Does manager Manuel Pellegrini not deserve the praise for getting the team in order or do the players not deserve credit for stepping up and improving? For example, Declan Rice wowed in his 2018/19 campaign despite transitioning from being a centre-back to a defensive midfielder. The 20-year-old featured 38 times across all competitions, contributing two goals, and had an impressive tackle success rate considering he won 63% of the 134 tackles he attempted in the league (Source: Premier League).
