EXTRA TIME

Arnie to stay at West Ham?

January 20, 2019 at 4:53 pm 1 comment

Chinese Super League side Guangzhou Evergrande is reported to have pulled out of a £45m deal for West Ham striker Marko Arnautovic, claims The Daily Mail. 

Arnautovic had been left out of the squad for West Ham’s 2-0 defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday. His brother Danijel had said that Arnie wanted to go to China “to win trophies”, which seem to have been in his mind’s eyes already and have distracted him from proper preparation for the away game against Bournemouth.

But now his and his brother’s attempt to transfer him for £35m or even £45m to Fabio Cannavaro’s Chinese side and bank wages in the region of £280,000-a-week seems to have failed as it is said that the Chinese Super League outfit pulled the plug on a deal on Saturday evening. 

Now we’ll see if the Austrian player will be level-headed and professional enough to honour his contract with West Ham and wait for an other chance to sign a lucrative deal elsewhere in summer. As I have written a week ago, I don’t think he’ll go on strike, but it will be some task for manager Manuel Pellegrini to reintegrate the sometimes volatile Arnautovic back into the squad, and we’ll see if he can win over fans that he waved goodbye to at the London Stadium just over a week ago.

Well, I hope Arnie will prove his critics wrong and continue to play well at West Ham for the remainder of the season. Then, in the summer, he could leave with his head high, maybe for a better club than just some Chinese outfit.

Though I have to say that it’s really difficult to understand why anyone wanted to go to China when we all know West Ham have the best Rice? 😂 … and we all know that West Ham is an “exceptional club” (as Austrian newspaper KURIER admitted in an article on the Arnautovic saga on Sunday).

With their big, world wide fanbase and an attendance of 57,000 in every single match at the London Stadium (a capacity which could rise to 60,000 in the near future) they really are a special club and there are just nine clubs in Europe that entertain a bigger crowd in their home games.

Let’s hope we’ll see Arnautovic back in a claret and blue shirt in front of these dedicated support, home and away, within the next weeks. Next game is the away tie against Wimbledon in the FA Cup, a trophy West Ham could still win with Arnie this season!

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