OPINION
This season has seen a huge turnaround in the fortunes of both West Ham United manager Manuel Pellegrini and director of football Mario Husillos.
The duo, who are linked irrevocably in east London, have been the main source of criticism from the fans amid the team’s tough start to the season. Their summer business, particularly the signing of horrendous goalkeeper Roberto, has come under severe fire.
However, that hasn’t stopped rival clubs taking a look at Husillos. Reliable Hammers news source Claret & Hugh claimed on Monday that Husillos is being head-hunted by two or three La Liga clubs, and is ready to call time on his Irons tenure come the end of the season.
While you don’t want to dance on any man’s grave, you have to say that many West Ham fans will surely be breathing a huge sigh of relief when reading that report.
The bottom line is that the club’s transfer business hasn’t been good enough since Husillos came on board prior to last season. Over the past three transfer windows West Ham have spent £156million. However, they’ve also made £61million in player sales [Source: Transfermarkt]. That’s a net spend of £95million over that time span.
What have they got from that splurge, though? Which signings have been unequivocal successes? From the 2018/19 class, maybe Felipe Anderson, Issa Diop, Andriy Yarmolenko, Lukasz Fabianski and Ryan Fredericks have been good recruits.
However, Fredericks was sorted before Husillos arrived, while there are suspicions that the same applies to Diop as well. Lucas Perez, Jack Wilshere and Carlos Sanchez have all been undoubted disasters, while Fabian Balbuena has been a bit of both.
To last summer, then. Sebastien Haller is up in the air at the moment, while Roberto, Pablo Fornals and Albian Ajeti have been extremely poor. Goncalo Cardoso is an academy player, while David Martin has played just once.
That summer of transfer business simply wasn’t enough to see the Hammers progress, and that’s why they’ve gone backwards this term. With that said, no one in east London will be too displeased if Husillos does in fact leave at the end of the campaign.
