As West Ham United prepare for a season in the Championship, Guido Rodriguez has an offer on the table from the Champions League.
We are at that stage of the post-relegation process when the autopsy starts to highlight just how wide the sickness had spread.
West Ham United were the subject of a damning deep-dive in The Athletic following an end to 14 unbroken years of Premier League football.
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Former Hammer Dean Ashton laid the blame at the door of the recruitment department. And the more details that come out, more mistakes are unearthed.
The Athletic, for instance, claim that Mateus Fernandes was pitched to Julen Lopetegui shortly before the midfielder left Sporting Lisbon for Southampton in a £15 million deal in 2024. Lopetegui instead opted to bring in Carlos Soler on loan and Guido Rodriguez as a free-agent.
West Ham United misfit Guido Rodriguez bounces back at Valencia
Ironically, both Fernandes and Rodriguez could be playing Champions League football next season while the Hammers languish in the Championship, though the journey the two midfielders will have taken to reach the European elite could hardly be more different.
Hammers News have been told that West Ham want in excess of £60 million for Fernandes. Manchester United are the frontrunners at present.
While £60 million would represent a profit on the fee they paid Southampton last August, even Lopetegui himself would probably have to admit that not signing Fernandes for a fraction of that sum in 2024, while bringing Soler and Rodriguez to East London instead, was an error.
Both Soler and Rodriguez returned to La Liga with their tails between their legs having failed to crack the Premier League.
A revitalised Soler would win the Copa del Rey with Real Sociedad. According to Diario de Sevilla, Rodriguez has an offer on the table from Villarreal after a fine spell at Valencia.
Talk about falling upwards.
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Carlos Soler backs Rodriguez after fine La Liga return
Villarreal finished third in 2025/26.
There is, therefore, a chance that Fernandes and Rodriguez could meet in the Champions League next term. That is if Man United are drawn against the team which broke Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s heart in the 2021 Europa League final.
“[Guido] is a fantastic person, a magnificent worker,” Soler says of his former West Ham teammate, via Super Deporte.
“Guido is a player I know from West Ham. He didn’t get many minutes there. But even so, I was talking with a colleague at Valencia when the possibility of him going there arose. I said he’s a spectacular player and person.”
Guido Rodriguez did not score a West Ham goal in 32 appearances for the club. He would find the net four times in just 16 La Liga matches for Valencia, though, including one in a 3-1 final day victory over champions Barcelona.
While the Fernandes saga is expected to rumble on for weeks, Rodriguez could make his decision imminently. His contract at Valencia is up, after all.
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