Friday, February 2

Race storm, player unrest and missed signings

It's an embarrassing morning to be a West Ham fan. "Race storm engulfs West Ham" was the headline on the front page of last night's Evening Standard and today's papers have more coverage of Africa-gate. Jacob Steinberg in the Guardian writes that Tony Henry's alleged comments about not signing African players have been a topic of much discussion in the dressing room. Credit to Cheikhou Kouyate for putting an "African and proud" selfie up on Instagram, which was liked by Pedro Obiang, Arthur Masuaku, Adrian and Manuel Lanzini. 

So we now have a rift between the players and club. Henry's position is surely untenable, but the worrying thing is who was copied into his email and who else knew about this. There's also the issue of who leaked the email to the press and what their motivation was. The Sun reports that the FA is investigating and can ask to see all emails and documents relating to recruitment.   

Meanwhile we're learning more about a number of failed deadline day signings. The Dendoncker saga doesn't appear to be the club's fault as the player wanted to come, but Anderlecht changed their mind about selling. 

West Ham were also trying to sign Leicester's Slimani writes the Guardian's Jacob Steinberg, but the deal was apparently scuppered because Leicester's owners had taken offence after Karren Brady wrote a piece in her Sun column claiming that Leicester's chairman was seen settling a large bill at "London's most expensive wine shop". She had since apologised and the matter was thought to have been resolved. It's a petty reaction from Leicester, but also a sign that Brady needs to be much more discrete about matters affecting West Ham. For example, her column recently had a needless dig at Robert Snodgrass who is still a West Ham player.

New signings Joao Mario and Jordan Hugill must wonder what they have got themselves into. Still, apart from the racism claims, the player unrest and the botched signings, the transfer window went rather well. 

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