Another own goal as Noble speaks out

Well that went well. Grady Diangana has gone to West Brom for a fee rising to £18m with add-ons. The fans are completely disillusioned and Mark Noble has tweeted that as captain he is "gutted angry and sad that Grady has left. A great kid with a great future!" While Jack Wilshere has tweeted "Go and do your thing in a club that respects you. Big player with a big future" and Arthur Masuaku has posted a broken heart. If the dressing room is already split from management then we're as good as down.

All of this is baffling. The official statement says that the money will be spent on signing players for other areas of the team. But Diangana's sale is only remotely acceptable if we have a top class left-back and central defender lined-up. You can't see WHU getting Burnley's James Tarkowski for  £20m. The West Ham statement also claims that the club is well-stocked with wide players in Antonio (who's now a striker), Bowen, Anderson, Yarmolenko, Fornals and Snodgrass. That's true, but Yarmolenko and Snodgrass are ageing and injury-prone, Fornals is better in the middle and Anderson has just had a terrible season. Diangana can beat a man which would have given us something unexpected.

Surely the best option would have been to keep Diangana and go for a couple of defenders on loan or wait to shift a midfielder if money is that tight. A good wage offer to Shane Duffy might have solved the problem. But as it is the club appears broken before a ball is kicked. If this is the work of Moyes then it's brave at least, but any new signings have to be top quality (and when did that last happen?). It seems we'll get nowhere until there's new ownership.