The transfer window closed at 11 pm Monday night and with it, West Ham’s hopes of signing a striker disappeared until at least the summer. Earlier in January, The Hammers took a £20million hit on club-record signing Sebastien Haller, with no striker lined up to replace the outgoing 26-year-old. The move was described by David Moyes as an ‘unexpected one’
David Moyes said: “Maybe if we didn’t take this offer now maybe we would not have got it at a later stage, so we just felt it was the right thing to do. But it certainly wasn’t planned,”
Haller certainly seemed aware of a potential move to the Dutch giants he said: “To be honest, this had been going on for a few months. I kept in touch with Erik ten Hag, also because we already had a good relationship at FC Utrecht,”
If Haller was aware of the move surely West Ham should have had some inkling an offer was on the way, which begs the question why did they not have a replacement lined up? Moyes was known for his thorough approach to transfers as Everton manager and he has had great success in the transfer market as Hammers boss. Over the past 12-months, the Scot has overseen the arrival of Tomas Soucek, Jarrod Bowen, Vladimir Coufal and Said Benrahma on permanent deals for a combined total in the region of £70million.
According to Sky Sports News, the West Ham board made £20-30million available to Moyes to bring in a striker and this was reiterated to the manager on the morning of transfer deadline day. Moyes, however, decided that with the right man not available he did not want to spend the money on the wrong player. This is something the manager has maintained throughout January. Moyes has on numerous occasions stated that he would not sign somebody for ‘the sake of it’ and that he was only going to buy with the long term in mind.
David Moyes said: “I don’t want to waste money, I don’t want to waste the space in the squad and fill it up with someone who is going to be here for two/three years and maybe I can’t move on and I can’t change around. I want people in who I think will be here for a while”.
The manager has faced questions throughout January on West Ham’s search for a striker and the Scot has rarely deviated from his stock answer.
David Moyes: “What I don’t want to do is I don’t want to spend and waste my money, take a wage upbringing a player in, spend big money and find that actually, I’ve got it wrong. I’d rather I waited and got someone who might be available in the summer,” he said in mid-January.
West Ham has made some attempts at bringing in a striker bidding for a number of players but their moves have been unsuccessful.
David Moyes said: “We have had one or two offers for players either rejected or not available or the clubs want too much money in our eyes, so it is not as if we are not trying”.
