So Jesse Lingard has taken the money (close to £200k a week is being reported) and signed for Nottingham Forest. In the process he's mugged off David Moyes who has pursued him for three transfer windows and now looks like a dumped Love Island contestant.
In a way it's a relief. It was increasingly obvious Jesse wasn't desperate to play for West Ham as the window went on — if he did he would have been keen to sign as soon as the window opened. The club made a great offer of a reported £150k a week but it was never worth breaking the wage structure for a player who turns 30 in December. Even Newcastle refused to contemplate Lingard's wage demands.
And would he have repeated the fantastic form he showed during his loan spell? Back then he had something to prove to Man United. It could be Forest will regret paying such huge wages if things don't start well — and remember he's missed pre-season and Lingard couldn't get in a struggling United side last season. Time has been wasted, but West Ham might now be able to use the money to buy a young, hungry striker. Remember strikers, they were big in the Seventies?
2 comments:
I tend to agree with this, but the fact is, with 16 days to go until opening game against arguably the best team in the world, we have signed no attacking players, have had a poor pre-season with very few goals scored, and have lost Yarmy. Leeds outbid us for young Perkins, now Forest for Lingard. Meanwhile Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Man Utd have all strengthened considerably - and will have paid appropriately. The plain fact is, players choose clubs for the money not for sentimental reasons. All Hammers fans know how this ends, absurd stories linking us with all sorts of players, the panic signing of Jordan Hugill at 10.59pm on transfer deadline day, Antonio doing his hamstring after 63 minutes against City, and Rice and Bowen leaving in January after storming the World Cup, if they don't leave in disgust this summer.
Worrying, but hopefully Scamacca signs and proves this wrong. If it goes wrong at Forest they could end up in financial trouble paying huge wages. Even Newcastle pulled out of the Lingard race because of his wage demands. If he's happy to play in a side likely to be in the bottom six then that doesn't say much about his hunger.
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