When West Ham United controversially sold young star Grady Diangana to West Brom they said it was to fund moves for defenders.
Stuart Pearce’s shock take on his time at West Ham
West Ham sold Diangana to West Brom for around £18million.
The deal sparked an outcry from fans and West Ham players, led by captain Mark Noble.
When announcing Diangana’s departure, West Ham admitted the decision was made reluctantly in order to ‘strengthen the squad in different areas at this time’ (whufc.com).
West Ham pledged to use Grady cash on defenders
“The money received for Grady will be reinvested entirely in the team, in line with the manager’s targets,” the statement said on whufc.com.
“We believe that this will give us the best possible chance of ensuring we have a balanced squad to compete in the Premier League and capable of reaching our objectives and ambitions this season.”
Right-back Vladimir Coufal arrived for £5million. And he looks an astute piece of business.
But in the centre of defence, the Hammers signed Craig Dawson on loan from Watford to act as back-up.
That came after links to a host of big name defenders across Europe came to nothing before the transfer window closed.
Moyes explains why Diangana money was not used as expected
West Ham then signed winger Said Benrahma from Brentford. And many fans have been quick to point out the Diangana money was not used for its intended purpose.
But now David Moyes himself has spoken out about the situation.
And he says the club tried everything to get a deal done for a top quality centre half. But when they couldn’t and the opportunity came along of offload Felipe Anderson, he needed a replacement.
“Everybody knows our decision was that we wanted to bring in central defenders or defenders because we generally needed them,” Moyes told whufc.com.
‘We decided to go for Said and it came off’
“We didn’t quite get the centre-halves because we bid for some good ones.
“The club did a brilliant job in trying to make offers for what I thought were really good centre-halves. But (we) just couldn’t get them for different reasons.
“Then, on deadline day we lost Felipe Anderson so that changed a bit of the balance of the squad. We didn’t expect to lose Felipe and it gave us a bit of an opening to decide if we wanted to go for somebody else.
“We decided to go for Said Benrahma and it came off.”