David Moyes sends clear January transfer message to West Ham United owners David Sullivan and David Gold after the club’s fine start to the season.
West Ham have made a superb start to the season, picking up where they left off last term.
Moyes has worked wonders at West Ham and turn a a club fighting relegation into a genuine European outfit.
The Scot has also completely transformed the atmosphere and mentality at West Ham against the backdrop of resentment from a large group of fans and co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold and their vice-chairman Karren Brady.
One major bone of contention for those disgruntled fans was a lack of consistent ambition in the transfer market.
Moyes has taken complete control of the football side of things at West Ham.
And he has been backed to sign the players he wants with a superb record in the transfer market since his return to the club.
But West Ham fans were disappointed that Moyes did not sign a striker in the summer.
Moyes said there was a dearth of forwards available (Independent).
And that has left West Ham with injury-prone Michail Antonio as their only legitimate striker option.
With Antonio’s history of hamstring problems, his game time has to be carefully managed by Moyes. And that means for some games West Ham are going to be short up front.
Reported West Ham striker targets such as Patson Daka (£20m), Odsonne Edouard (£15m) and Danny Ings (£25m) moved to rival Premier League clubs and have already started to show their worth.
With no Jesse Lingard – who operated as a second striker in many games for the Hammers – this season, being without Antonio for an extended period is a major concern.
And Moyes has sent a clear message to Sullivan and Gold that he wants investment to bring in the next Lingard in the January window to improve his options and the team (The Evening Standard).
David Moyes sends clear January transfer message to West Ham owners David Sullivan and David Gold
“I think we’ve got a good group of players and I don’t think it would be ever about any individual player and I hope that Jesse would probably look back and say that the players I played with helped me and made my job easy…” Moyes told The Evening Standard.
“But maybe in January, we might need to find, that we have to find another Jesse Lingard if we can, we might need to add again, to keep it going.
“But at the moment. I think the momentum we’ve had from the end of last season, even through preseason into just now, and the players are showing it and we want to keep it going, keep the levels up. So I hope that we can do that in the coming months.”
Moyes’s comments come as the man he signed instead of Lingard – Nikola Vlasic – takes time to settle into his new surroundings.
The Croatian has showed flashes of his ability and is clearly a very technically gifted and tidy player.
But he is yet to really click into gear with his teammates and could be like a new signing himself when he finally does.