Who are the players likely to leave West Ham?

Now that West Ham’s unprecedented £100m spending splurge appears to be over you wonder who will be sold from the squad to try and recoup some of the money before August 9. Jordan Hugill must be a likely candidate to be sold, having cost £8m but never started a game — symbolising all that was wrong with the pre-director of football scattergun approach to signings. He should still be worth at least £5 million and is a proven Championship scorer. You feel sorry for the way the lad has been treated, but he’s unlikely to play under Pellegrini. 

Another person likely to go is Sam Byram, now Fredericks has been signed. He still has admirers from his days at Leeds and could do a job in the Championship. Robert Snodgrass is another signing who hasn’t really been given a chance and would be in demand with lower level clubs, having done well at Aston Villa on loan last season. Josh Cullen will also surely depart to the lower leagues for a similar fee to the £1.5m raised from selling Reece Burke to Hull City.

Bigger names to depart might be Antonio, now Anderson has arrived. Though personally, despite two seasons of injuries, I think Mikhail’s too good a player to let go to the likes of Crystal Palace. Cheikhou Kouyate might also be a candidate to depart if Obiang remains the main holding midfielder. He’s been up and down in form for two seasons and might fetch £15 million as a Senegal international.

Two other candidates for selling would be Andy Carroll and Winston Reid, though with both being out for three months it’s unlikely anyone will come in for them. Ogbonna could raise a fair price but is too good a player to leave, despite the arrival of Diop and Balbuena. Adrian would fetch a decent price too, but I’d prefer to keep both him and Fabianski. Edimilson Fernandes is another squad player who might raise a bit of cash, but really our squad is still quite small by Premier League standards and there’s not a huge amount of room for manoeuvre.

What the club mustn’t do is cash in on Arnautovic and get an easy £50 million from Man United. But these are interesting times and it will be intriguing to see who finally departs.