Crysencio Summerville will not be easily replaced. Nils Koppen, the man tasked with identifying the players capable of catapulting West Ham United back out of the Championship, will not need reminding of that.
Appointed a fortnight ago as the club’s Director of Player Recruitment, Koppen arrives highly-regarded after spells at Rangers and PSV.
Whether the Belgian succeeds at West Ham United, though, will rest heavily on his ability to locate a left winger capable of emulating Crysencio Summerville’s Player of the Year-winning performances during the Dutchman’s previous campaign at Championship level.
How will Summerville’s future be impacted by his World Cup performances? 🇳🇱
He leaves with 2 goals and 2 assists! ⚽ ⚽
Hammers News can confirm that Summerville has a £50 million release clause in his contract. This, coupled with the £85 million banked via the sale of Mateus Fernandes, also gives Koppen the largest transfer kitty of his career.
Time will tell whether he opts for his usual approach – Koppen is renowned for prioritising youth while looking for bargains in lesser-seen markets – or instead uses his greater financial resources in pursuit of more familiar names.
Here, we have done our best to rank the potential Summerville replacements linked so far this summer, from the most exciting to the most underwhelming.
Ranking West Ham United’s potential Crysencio Summerville replacements
1st) Simon Adingra – Sunderland
It was against Liverpool when Adingra really burst onto the scene in the blue and white of Brighton back in 2023. The Ivorian pounced on an opposition mix-up and curled his shot past a stranded Alisson from 25 yards out.
That coming-of-age finish may have come from the right-hand flank, though Adingra tends to be more comfortable on the left. He struggled after a £21 million move to Sunderland last summer but, on loan at Monaco, provided five goal contributions in ten Ligue 1 starts while cutting in from the touchline, a la Summerville.
Only Ebere Eze and Mohammed Kudus averaged more dribbles per Premier League match in 2023/24, while he ranked just below Mo Salah, Bukayo Saka and Erling Haaland when it came to touches in the opposition box.
With a regular run of starts in the division below, it is not hard to imagine Adingra finishing the Championship campaign with double figures in both the goals and the assists columns.
2nd) Ruben Vargas – Sevilla
Coming a close second is Ruben Vargas; the Swiss schemer who produced one of the stand-out ‘supersub’ performances at the 2026 World Cup. Switzerland were struggling to break Bosnia down before Vargas stepped off the bench. One goal and one assist later, he was the architect of a stunning four-goal flurry late in the day.
According to reports in Andalusia, West Ham are lining up a potential £12.5 million swoop of cash-strapped, perennially crisis-hit Sevilla.
Vargas sits just below Adingra on the podium because, at the age of 27, he has never shown himself capable of racking up impressive numbers on a consistent basis. His best league tally of eight came all the way back in 2018/19 for Luzern.
3) Sorba Thomas – Stoke City
According to ExWhuEmployee, Barking-born former Hammers kid Sorba Thomas could return to the club who released him as a teenager more than a decade ago. Thomas described that heartbreaking exit from the academy as a ‘smack in the face’. Needless to say, he may feel there is unfinished business in East London.
Thomas probably has a lower ceiling than Vargas and certainly Adingra. He does not possess the mind-bending, jet-heeled ball-carrying of Summerville. Yet, what the Welshman arguably lacks in unpredictability, he could make up for with the consistency of his delivery.
Thomas topped the charts with the most assists in the Championship last term. His delivery from wide areas is, to quote Not the Top 20 expert Ali Maxwell, ‘absolutely deadly’.
Stoke reportedly value Thomas at £15 million. A reasonable fee, but also a potentially risky one for a winger who turns 28 in January and has had a single good season at this level.
4) Tommy Watson – Brighton and Hove Albion
In the play-off final of 2025, with just seconds remaining, Watson sent half of Wembley – and all of Wearside – into raptures with a glorious last-gasp winner for Sunderland against Sheffield United. In truth, he’s done very little since.
Watson played less than an hour of Premier League football following a £10 million move to Brighton. Minutes weren’t much easier to come by after dropping down again with Millwall either; just two starts in four months for a promotion-seeking outfit who had little interest in breaking up a winning formula.
Watson could be a revelation at West Ham. Equally, asking a 20-year-old with just 13 league starts to replace someone as influential as Summerville may be fraught with issues.
Summerville out, Thomas in? Give your take on the Sorba Thomas rumours…
The Stoke star was released by West Ham as a teenager ⚒️
5) Emam Ashour – Al Ahly
According to TEAMtalk, West Ham are battling the likes of Celtic and Fulham for the £4 million-rated Al-Ahly wideman. Now, we all know what it means when you describe a player as a ‘World Cup signing’. As countless examples have proven – El Hadji Diouf, Kleberson, Milan Jovanovic etc – securing a player on the back of an impressive summer tournament is risky business.
Yes, Ashour scored twice as Egypt broke new ground and reached the last-16. Yes, he outshone Mo Salah while rattling home a thumping long-range drive past Thibaut Courtois.
Yet, this is also a 28-year-old who scored only twice in 13 Egyptian league matches last season, and whose experience of European football is limited to a forgettable spell with Midtjylland half a decade ago.
6) Reiss Nelson – Arsenal
Believe it or not, Reiss Nelson is still an Arsenal player. Things might stay that way too, unless the Gunners can find someone willing to take a now-26-year-old who managed only 118 minutes of league action during a Brentford loan hindered by injury and illness.
Across the last two seasons, Nelson has missed nearly 40 matches through injury. His greatest number of starts in a single league season came when he racked up ten for Feyenoord in 2021/22.
You will forgive us for casting doubt on his ability to survive the physical challenges a 46-game Championship campaign brings.
7) Michel-Ange Balikwisha – Celtic
Bringing up the rear is a man so maligned north of the border that the mere mention of Balikwisha had the Celtic fans wondering if April Fool’s Day had been shifted back a few months. The £5 million Parkhead misfit scored only once in 18 matches and found himself frozen out for the entire second half of the Scottish Premiership campaign.
With all due respect, if you cannot be relied upon to make a difference against Dundee and Falkirk, we don’t have much faith in you blossoming in a league where Celtic and Rangers would be hard pushed reaching the play-offs.
Hammers News can reveal that Koppen is open to the idea of bringing Balikwisha south of Hadrian’s Wall. As for why? Well, let’s just say we are about as bemused as the Celtic faithful.
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