Friday, August 25

Snoddy goes to Villa

The recruitment policy at West Ham appears to be make it up as you go along. Robert Snodgrass has signed on a season-long loan for Aston Villa, so the replacement for Dimitri Payet has now been replaced by Marko Arnautovic after seven months. Seven of last season's signings have now departed.

Presumably the club spend a long time scouting potential signings and the manager must have faith in the players he buys. So why shift Snodgrass after just 15 games? Is that long enough to judge a player? Admittedly he didn't impress last season, but he came into a struggling team, was often played out of position and would surely have improved this time round. The same player had scored nine goals for Hull in the first half of the season.

Perhaps Snodgrass might be the sort of player who excels at teams like Leeds, Norwich and Hull but doesn't cope well with not being the star man. But he's not really had a chance at West Ham. As it is we've spent £10 million on a player who has played 15 games — which is bad business by anyone's standards.

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