Mark Noble has sent a message to the owners about West Ham’s squad depth ahead of the January transfer window.
The January transfer window opens a week today and David Moyes has made it clear he wants to make signings.
Technical director Tim Steidten was regarded to have overseen one of the best transfer windows in the Premier League when he arrived at West Ham in the summer.
Alongside sporting director Mark Noble, majority owner David Sullivan and Moyes, Steidten spent the Declan Rice money expertly.
Noble message to owners about West Ham’s squad depth
This had been declared by many to be West Ham’s best ever squad. But some performances when missing one or two key players have made a mockery of that claim.
The latest examples of that came in drubbings at Fulham and Liverpool.
Moyes controversially elected to rest several key stars for the quarter-final at Liverpool in a wide open Carabao Cup. He received a backlash from many Hammers fans and observers for that decision.
But the Scot insisted he needed to give certain players a break and those on the fringes a chance.
It backfired spectacularly. And West Ham fans feel it provided proof that the club must bring in new signings next month.
Now Noble has sent a message to the owners about West Ham’s squad depth ahead of the January transfer window.
Nobes says squad not strong enough to fight on all fronts
And he has made it clear Moyes simply does not have the quality in depth to compete on all fronts.
“We started really well and then we had a bit of a blip,” Noble said on TNT Discovery Plus.
“And then everyone was looking at obviously the way we were playing and the results we were picking up. But then in last two months we’ve really come on strong you know and beat some teams we probably should beat with the squad we’ve got now…
“There’s no excuses of course (for the Anfield hammering) we got convincingly beat as well, Liverpool were really good on the night.
Quality in depth not numbers is Hammers issue
“But when you’re playing in Europe and you’re travelling our squad probably hasn’t got the strength in depth that we probably need to play in all these competitions, it’s hard. And then when you put a sickness bug and a flu bug in with that people think it’s excuses but it’s really not.
“We’ve all been run down at times, sometimes it’s hard to play like that. We actually had to ask players to play that probably wouldn’t have in any other games because of the way they felt.”
It doesn’t get much clearer than that from Noble. And he’s spot on.
The problem at West Ham is not depth in terms of numbers but a lack of quality in depth.
The drop off from West Ham’s starting XI to the back-up players is far too steep.
A top source inside West Ham has told Hammers News fringe players must be sold to free up space in the squad and satisfy FFP rules if they want to bring in new signings in January.
Whether the Hammers can ship some average players out in the window – and give themselves time to then make additions – remains to be seen.
Last week Moyes warned the fringe players who have failed to impress when given a chance this season could become starters during the busy winter period with players heading off to AFCON.
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