Kevin Nolan has opened up on his time at West Ham United, and highlighted a big mistake the club made.
Since Nolan left, he has been speaking to numerous media outlets about his London Stadium spell.
It has been all change at West Ham this summer, after David Moyes left the club, along with first-team coach Kevin Nolan.
Julen Lopetegui replaced the Scot, and the Spaniard has already made seven big summer signings, whilst apparently being on the hunt for more.
The way that the 57-year-old is working is light and day from how Moyes used to operate during transfer windows.
The Scot would usually leave his transfer business right up until the final few days of the window due to his dithering over potential targets.
We don’t have that problem anymore, and as a result, there is huge excitement amongst the fans heading into the new season.
West Ham are spending some serious cash in the summer transfer window, with Lopetegui being backed to the hilt.
However, the Spaniard may have had an even bigger budget, had Moyes been more ruthless with one potential new signing in particular…
West Ham made a really poor £81m error, Kevin Nolan admits
The former Hammers coach has been speaking openly about his time at the London Stadium, and he made a major admission.
Nolan was a guest on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, and responded about West Ham’s interest in signing Julian Alvarez in the summer of 2022.
He said, “To be fair, we did a lot of work on Alvarez the season he signed. We did a lot of work leading up to it. And one of the first things I said he’s a Man City player right away.“
“Like when obviously the boss said what you think, I just said he’s a Man City player for me because he just looked the part,” Nolan continued, “I think for me he was probably a bit too slight, and what we needed was someone a bit bigger because he was on his own, but he adapted fantastically well. But he was given the opportunity to adapt because of how Man City are and what they do.”
Alvarez joined Man City from River Plate in the summer of 2022 for around £14 million.
However, West Ham had the chance to sign the talented Argentina international before he made the move to City.
However, Moyes and his coaching staff rejected that opportunity because they thought he was too slight, and wouldn’t be able to handle the physicality of the Premier League.
Those concerns obviously proved to be unfounded in the end. Alvarez was superb for Man City, before he completed his £81 million move to Atletico Madrid earlier this week (Yahoo).
If only Kevin Nolan, and Moyes of course, would have been prepared to take a punt of Alvarez – West Ham would be in a brilliant position financially right now!
What makes the situation even more frustrating is the fact that the Hammers signed Gianluca Scamacca that summer – a player painfully ill-suited to Moyes’s playing style.
Thankfully, West Ham are acting more like a professional outfit now.
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