West Ham are in urgent talks to sign two bad boy players who are being bombed out of their clubs over disciplinary problems, highlighting the club’s desperate scramble for reinforcements.
With one week to go until the summer transfer window closes, the Hammers are on the verge of a full-blown crisis.
West Ham are living up to the pre-season predictions of many journalists and leading pundits that they would be relegation candidates.
Some would argue after a 3-0 defeat at newly-promoted Sunderland and 5-1 home thrashing to Chelsea, that West Ham are relegation certainties as things stand.
Two games into the new Premier League campaign, the competition is living up to billing that it will be at its most competitive for more than a decade.
It is difficult to identify three worse teams than Graham Potter’s West Ham so far.
That is, in no small part, down to a seriously underwhelming summer window so far.
West Ham needed this to be one of their best ever periods of recruitment.
Desperation sets in for West Ham as clock ticks down on window
And FIFA handed them a major leg-up by announcing what was essentially a three-month window, extended due to the inaugural Club World Cup.
With David Sullivan doing the deals as de facto director of football, Kyle Macaulay heading up recruitment and Potter going on record saying it would be an “exciting and interesting summer” geared towards rebuilding the team around young, hungry players – West Ham have failed miserably at the time of writing.
Nine first team players have left and that could become 11 imminently with two West Ham deals set to go through in the coming days.
Only four signings have arrived, with just two of them brought in for the starting XI in El Hadji Malick Diouf and Mads Hermansen.
Midfield is the most pressing issue for Potter in the last week of the window if West Ham are to have any chance of staying up.
But the Hammers are also well short up front and in defence.
With Edson Alvarez shipped out on loan, Guido Rodriguez moving to Espanyol and Andy Irving set to depart too, it is imperative at least two game-changing midfielders are brought in before Monday’s deadline.
Now desperate West Ham are in talks for a bad boy duo being bombed out of their clubs over disciplinary issues.
If ever you needed proof the Hammers are scraping the transfer window barrel, it is the news emerging from France and north London.
West Ham’s dismal start to the season is making them an even less attractive proposition for players.
Potter has been pushing how important it is to have a good team spirit where players have one another’s backs and act as one big family.
But such is West Ham’s desperation, they appear willing to risk all that by bringing in two players who have been so ill-disciplined at their current clubs that their managers are quite literally pushing them out of the door.
West Ham in talks for bad boy duo being bombed out of clubs
And neither fit Potter’s publicly stated recruitment profile and policy with a combined age of 58 and no future sell-on value.
L’Équipe claims France international midfielder Adrien Rabiot has been approached by the Hammers after being transfer-listed by Marseille following an altercation involving former West Ham target Jonathan Rowe.
Roberto De Zerbi was a part of the group that has decided to bomb the 30-year-old out of Marseille after a physical bust-up with Rowe after a recent game.
Rabiot has been told to find a new club and a host of French sources have repeated L’Equipe’s claim that West Ham have held talks with the player about a move to east London with Villa also said to be interested.
Football journalist Pete O’Rourke has claimed that’s not the only midfielder move West Ham have launched.
Hammers in talks with Rabiot and want Bissouma, reports claim
Because recent reported interest in Tottenham Hotspur outcast Yves Bissouma has now been firmed up, he reports.
O’Rourke says West Ham are exploring reuniting Bissouma with Potter in the final week of the window.
A number of clubs are keeping tabs on the 28-year-old Mali international, who has been publicly criticised and dropped by Thomas Frank for persistent lateness to training.
The Spurs boss is believed to have told Bissouma to find another club.
The move would be ironic given Potter has reportedly had to discipline Emerson Palmieri for being late to training.
It shows how desperate West Ham are that they are willing to go against their transfer policy to bring in two outcasts like Rabiot and Bissouma.
Hammers insider Sean Whetstone has claimed the board have grown fed up of trying in vain to sign Potter and Macaulay’s targets and vowed to ‘get stuck in’ to try and sign players this week.
Moves for Bissouma and Rabiot have all the hallmarks of Sullivan-led deals.
At this late stage they are both undoubtedly vast improvements on what they currently have. Although that’s not saying much.
The problem is should the club miss out on those then it really does leave them nowhere to go.
Except a move that has seemed inevitable for some time now despite the Hammers denying interest, free agent Josh Brownhill.
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