Fonte on his way

So Jose Fonte has been sold to Chinese Super League club Dalian Yifeng for a reported €5 million. It's strange to lose Fonte now, when he can't be replaced until the summer and it leaves West Ham reliant on centre backs Reid, Ogbonna, Collins and Rice, with Kouyate and Evra as emergency cover. It's a decent fee for a 34-year-old who cost £8 million, but Fonte always looked better in a five-man defence and might have prospered in a Moyes side. 

The sale gives the impression of simply being a way of moving on an embarrassing reminder of David Sullivan's gaffe, when he said, "my kids begged me not to sign Fonte and Snodgrass". Fonte himself described those comments as "ignorant" and a man who won a European Championship winners' medal with Portugal was entitled to a lot more respect from his chairman. Yes, the Hammers perhaps signed him after his legs had gone a little and Fonte wants regular football in order to make the World Cup. But he would still have been a good player to have on the bench for the rest of the season.