Well, an underwhelming transfer window, as it was for most PL teams, who are sensibly opting not to make panic buys at inflated prices. For most of deadline day West Ham were said to be in for a loan of Chelsea's Michy Batshuayi, who eventually went to Palace. Apparently he was asking for £160k a week which WHU refused to pay — and really, the last thing we need is another short-term mercenary. Belgian international Batshuayi came with a big reputation at Chelsea having signed for £33 million rom Gotham City, but never cemented a starting place and after a promising half-season loan at Dortmund he has only scored one in 15 games for Valencia, so he would still have been an expensive gamble.
At least not signing the Batman means that we have refused to sell Hernandez and Perez, which means that allied to Arnautovic, Carroll and Antonio the club has five strikers for the rest of the season.
What was stranger to understand was that Pellegrini did not reinforce his ailing defence. We're down to two fit centre backs, one of whom Ogbonna, is looking way off form and worryingly slow. There's no option to play five at the back unless Cresswell is shifted into the middle and Masuaku clearly can't defend in a conventional back four. Surely we could have picked up a decent defender on a loan deal? Another central midfielder might have helped too.
The only signing has been Nasri, which could be a very shrewd piece of business on a free. One positive is that at least WHU have avoided a panic buy like Jordan Hugill, who cost £8m in the last window and was never started in a match. And we've also avoided re-signing Havard Nordtveit, who has strangely enough turned up at Fulham…
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