West Ham secured the deal of the century by selling 26-year-old for £20 million – opinion

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West Ham United have been criticised heavily for a poor record of selling players for decent fees over the past few years.

Aside from the Declan Rice sale, West Ham have struggled to move on many players for worthwhile fees throughout our history.

This summer was very much the same. Julen Lopetegui brought nine new players to the London Stadium, whilst 12 left.

However, out of those 12 players, four were released – Joseph Anang, Ben Johnson and Angelo Ogbonna, and Divin Mubama.

Four left on loan deals – Kurt Zouma, Nayef Aguerd, Maxwel Cornet and James Ward-Prowse.

And four were sold for fees adding up to less than £50 million – Flynn Downes, Said Benrahma, Thilo Kehrer and Nathan Trott.

That’s poor business really isn’t it, when you consider how much we spent on all of those players.

However, one sale we made a few years back did constitute great business, and it’s a deal that should be the benchmark for all our future sales…

West Ham secured deal of the century by selling Grady Diangana

I really think that the Hammers need to do a much better job of selling our players at the right time.

West Ham have held on to certain players for far too long out of misplaced sentiment – Aaron Cresswell, Vladimir Coufal, Lukasz Fabianski, Michail Antonio and Tomas Soucek spring to mind.

That needs to change going forward, if the Hammers are to compete at the very highest level on all fronts.

Since 2020, only Said Benrahma, Flynn Downes, Gianluca Scamacca, Issa Diop, Sebastien Haller and Grady Diangana have been sold for fees amounting to more than £10 million.

And just two of them have been sold for £20 million or more throughout the past four years.

Grady Diangana was one of those, and he is the best sale we have made in recent history as far as I’m concerned.

Amazingly, he was linked with a move back to West Ham this summer just gone, but that didn’t happen in the end.

Grady Diangana sale one of the best

The Hammers sold the now 26-year-old winger to West Brom for £20 million four years ago (The Daily Mail).

Diangana has bagged just 22 goals and 19 assists in 170 games for the Baggies since the summer of 2020 (Transfermarkt).

Those are very poor numbers for an attacking player, whatever way you look at it.

Things haven’t gone very well for West Brom since they signed him either. They finished in 19th position in the Premier League in 2020 and have remained in the Championship ever since.

When West Ham sold Grady Diangana, it just seemed like a crazy thing to do. Losing one of our very best young talents for just £20 million felt like a real sucker punch.

It now looks like an absolute masterstroke though, and the deal to sell the 26-year-old is a reminder to us all that we don’t see these young players in training week in, week out.

As fans, we tend to forget that sometimes.

David Sullivan, David Moyes got the decision to sell Grady Diangana spot on back in 2020. And they deserve huge credit for that.