Zarate Linked With West Ham
The Daily Mail say West Ham have been ordered to cut the wage bill by Icelandic owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson. Gudmundsson's Icelandic bank Landsbanki, like most major financial institutions, has been hit by the credit crunch in recent months.
Alan Curbishley has also said that it would be unfair on the injured players if West Ham brought in more new players in the summer. Mind you who knew that football was about being fair.
Talk of tightening the purse strings however has not stopped The Sun claiming that West Ham are about to splash £18m on Argentine striker Mauro Zarate. The 21-year-old, currently on loan at Birmingham from Al-Sadd in Qatar, has impressed in the last couple of matches leading him to be linked with a number of Premier League clubs. It looks like today is West Ham's turn.
posted by Keir Clarke @ 8:37 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Zarate seems a useful player. In terms of the transfer market,I think there are two partly offseeting factors.
One is the well documented credit crunch.which is hitting Iceland disproportionately ,relative to the
rest of Europe. Clearly, this is going to place some restraints on us,at least in 2008.
The other is the arrival of Nani. There wud have been no point in bringing in Nani,if we had no intentions of spending any money on players. But perhaps the arrival will make us a bit more efficient in our transfer dealings.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Given the economic climate,it s difficult to see making "high profile" purchases,or more than one in any case. But I am confident that there will be some activity. In terms of raising funds for transfers ,unfortunately it is hard to envision the club not raising ticket prices again.
It would not surprise me if over teh summer there was a net spend of between 5 and 10 million,but that wud include offloading a number of players not likely to feature again. Quashie,Davenport,Walker,Reid and perhaps one or two more experienced players. I hope Pantsil is not one to go, but much I aas I think it wud be good business if we cud get a decent price for Boa Morte, who wud be keen to buy him? Perhaps in the case of one or two older players,it isn t a case of what transfer fee we d receive, but simply a case of no longer having to pay their wages.
One player that concerns me about us losing in this difficult economic climate is Collins. And possibly even Gabbidon as well. Both are injury-prone ,and altho Collins is a decent player in my opinion,the club may feel that he hasn t really cracked on. One cud argue that it is a chicken and egg thing with Collins- he never gets a proper run in the team ,and when he does ,he gets injured . With Tomkins coming on, the club may look long and hard at whether it needs to keep both Collins and Gabbidon,as opposed to one or the other .
My natural inclination is usually that of a pessimist,but in this case I feel that the media have it wrong. I think that we will bring in at least a couple quality signings,but I also feel that there will be a number of outgoings to help fund that ,including one or two that supporters may not be too happy about losing.
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