Andy Irving has just left West Ham United to join Czech Republic side Sparta Prague.
Irving was delighted to join Sparta from West Ham, as he looks to finally kick his career into gear.
West Ham paid £3 million to sign Irving from SK Austria Klagenfurt on transfer deadline day in the summer of 2023.
At the time, it seemed like a really bizarre move from the Hammers. Irving was a completely unknown commodity.
The chances of escaping relegation just went up 👆
Many West Ham fans were perplexed by the transfer but interestingly, the Scot quickly became a cult hero at the London Stadium.
In fairness, that kind of papered over the cracks a little bit.
Irving didn’t have any kind of impact for the Hammers in the Premier League and back in the summer, questions started to be asked about why he was actually still at the club.
That failed experiment has finally come to an end and now it’s time for Hammers fans to admit the harsh reality regarding Andy Irving.
The Andy Irving reality that every West Ham fan must now admit
It looked like the Scot would leave West Ham in the summer of 2024, January 2025 and the summer of 2025.
However, he remained at the London Stadium, for far too long in all honesty.
Is it too harsh to suggest that every time he played for the Hammers it looked like he had won a competition to get on the pitch for five minutes?
Perhaps it is.
Irving wasn’t terrible, but he certainly wasn’t up to Premier League standard.
The 25-year-old is a good Championship player at best and the fact that he has joined Sparta Prague tells us all we need to know.
However, the real question is why was he even given 331 minutes of action over 18 appearances for West Ham in the first place?
West Ham’s Andy Irving signing under the spotlight
It just sums West Ham’s transfer business up over the past few years really.
David Sullivan has overseen some horrendous deals during his time in charge of the Hammers and while Irving wasn’t an expensive signing, he will go down as one of the strangest that West Ham have made in recent history.
If you could only keep ONE of these two players in January – who would it be?!
They acted like a charity case regarding the Irving deal.
It’s fair to say that not one single Premier League club would have taken a chance on the former Hearts midfielder.
And it was very clear to see from the first time he took to the pitch for the Hammers that he wasn’t good enough.
It was a mind-boggling deal from the start. Nobody understood why the Hammers signed Irving and even he seemed to be surprised whenever he was given minutes for the club.
West Ham signing Andy Irving was a painful experiment that lasted way too long.
There should be real relief at the club now that it is over.
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