What constitutes a big club is certainly up for debate amongst football fans. Is it the history or the stadium capacity, or even the financial capabilities? For me, it’s simple. Big clubs compete and win silverware regularly.
When David Sullivan and David Gold completed their takeover over West Ham back in 2010, Sullivan spoke of his ambitions to turn West Ham into a big club. “We have a seven-year plan to get West Ham into the Champions League and turn them into a big club and over the seven-year period we do plan to spend a lot of money,” he said.
Six-and-a-half years on and West Ham haven’t quite met Sullivan’s ambitions, though they are slowly getting there. The Hammers are now in a European competition – not quite the Champions League but it will suffice – and the future is looking bright.
Improvements are being made to the senior squad, as well as the quality of the academy; Dimitri Payet looks set to stay and several key first-teamers have been handed new contracts.
All West Ham are missing is the elusive ’20-goal-a-season striker’ – someone of the ilk of Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette. Failure to sign a clinical striker and West Ham will continue to find themselves bridging that gap between the best and the rest – a perennial ‘nearly’ club.
If West Ham are to ever set themselves apart from the likes of Stoke and Crystal Palace to challenge for European football regularly then investment in a top drawer centre-forward is required. Payet alone is simply not enough to ensure success.
Sullivan and Gold understand the need for an improvement in the goalscoring department and have been making offers left, right and centre, but to no avail.
Missing out on Michy Batshuayi seemed extremely unfortunate. A deal was agreed for him to join West Ham in the morning, by the afternoon Chelsea had swooped and prized him away – but it was not that simple. West Ham had been haggling over a few million for weeks, refusing to match the €40million asking price, in hope that Marseille would lower it. Instead, it allowed for ‘bigger clubs’ to swoop.
West Ham then turned their attention to Mauro Icardi of Inter Milan, a player who has attracted attention from Arsenal, Atletico Madrid and Spurs. An insulting offer of €25million was tabled for the Argentine forward, just days after Jack Sullivan told the World that West Ham had a €39million bid for Batshuayi accepted.
Inter have new Chinese investors and no pressing need to sell any players this summer. So why did Sullivan and Gold feel low-balling the Italian side was a wise decision?
Inter are not alone. Besiktas’ president has already voiced his frustration at the way West Ham conduct transfer negotiations – publicly declaring their interest before contacting the club, then tabling laughable offers.
Nobody is asking for West Ham to throw hundreds of millions at players this summer, but if the Club are serious about landing a marquee striker signing then they must pay the going rate.
If Barcelona and Real Madrid come calling, it is extremely difficult for the Club to compete, but West Ham need to be making an effort to finalise negotiations before other interested parties have a chance to enter discussions. Submitting pointless bids in order to please the fans and appear busy only delays negotiations, as we saw with Batshuayi, Tore and now Icardi.
It’s all well and good showing your intent by making moves for these players, but there comes a time where you need to start delivering. Gold and Sullivan, for all the good they’ve done for this club, have made the very public promise to deliver a world class striker to the club this summer. Time and targets are running out to come good on that promise.
