Archive for July, 2019
Allez ‘aller!
Seb Haller is a West Ham Player
After the Maxi Gomez transfer had broken down, Frankfurt striker Sebastien Haller emerged as one of West Ham’s prime transfer targets, and now has been signed on Wednesday!
“We don’t believe the Hammers will get Haller”, many football fans thought, with West Ham not playing in Europe this season and with an asking price which would be in excess of EUR 40m.
But in Pellegrini and Husillos we trust, as I wrote in my previous post! Today Frenchman Sebastien Haller was officially presented as West Ham’s new record signing!
Haller said: “For me I can guarantee that I will give 100% for the club because the club has given me this confidence and I will try to give it back every day in every game.”
He reinforces West Ham’s forward line following the departures of strikers Lucas Perez, Marko Arnautovic and Andy Carroll this summer.
Haller will join up with the rest of the West Ham squad when they return from the pre-season Premier League Asia Trophy in China.
“He is at the perfect moment for us, like many of the players who have arrived at the club in the past 12 months – young, with his best years still ahead of him, yet with good experience and proven at the highest level,” said West Ham director of football Mario Husillos.
Haller joins forward Pablo Fornals as well as goalkeepers David Martin and Roberto as West Ham’s other summer signings.
A big welcome from me to Seb Haller! Let’s hope he will be as successful in claret and blue as West Ham’s latest Frenchman (Dmitri Payet) has been! And let’s hope he will stay some years longer at London Stadium than Payet has!
If West Ham could also strengthen the squad in defence, the club will be prepared to aim for a European spot and maybe some silverware in the cups next season. With MP at the helm, we can be sure that West Ham have got a manager who is capable of getting the players he needs for his “Pellegrini revolution”!
Although, while I’m writing this, West Ham have gone behind 1-3 to Manchester City in a preseason game in China (which the Irons eventually lost 1-4). A timely reminder that we shouldn’t let us be taken away, we’re still West Ham, and fortune’s might be hiding again next season … even with more world class players in the team than we had in previous years or decades!
Btw, my personal season is getting under way today with my first live game of the summer: First Vienna FC vs. Union Berlin at Stadium “Hohe Warte” in Vienna.
Come on you Irons!
West Ham‘s new number 7
But Irons still in desperate search of a hitman
With Marko Arnautovic having departed to Chinese side SIPG Shanghai under highly annoying circumstances (on which I don’t want to waste words anymore) West Ham have immediately got a new number 7 in Andriy Yarmolenko.
Prior to West Ham’s first game of pre-season in Austria, Andriy said:
“I’m changing because it is my number in the national team and also because it is a lucky number for me and I hope it makes me play well for West Ham.”
Having been out for much of last season due to injury the Ukrainian added: “Maybe a little bit I am like a new signing!”
If he keeps fit, Yarmolenko could partly fill the gap that Arnie’s departure has opened in West Ham’s squad. But with Andriy being a winger it will be necessary to quickly also find other offensive options to guarantee that West Ham will reach their goals: finishing within the first third of the Premier League table, and to do that with offensive and entertaining football. Manager Manuel Pellegrini’s first transfer target Maxi Gomez unfortunately could not be signed, and therefore the search for a new striker has to continue.
With forward Andy Carroll released in the summer after another injury-affected season, also his squad number was handed to a new player in the 3-2 win over Austrian Bundesliga side SCR Altach, with Chicharito sporting the shirt no. 9. It is to be seen though if the Mexican will keep this squad number, as a new center forward might get it, and it is not a certainty at all that Chicharito will remain at West Ham.
Frenchman Sebastien Haller (pic) playing for German side Eintracht Frankfurt and having netted 15 times in the Bundesliga last season, is rumoured to be West Ham’s new striker target. He is said to be at the centre of a €40 million bid from the club, but he has no get out-clause in his contract and the German outfit will be reluctant to let Haller leave, as with Luka Jovic one of their stars has already joined Real Madrid and another one, Ante Rebic, could leave for Inter Milan.
West Ham’s shocking scoring record
West Ham is desperate to sign a really prolific front man after years in which the Hammers’ scoring record has been on low tide. A survey published by ClaretandHugh ( click here ) showed that West Ham are the only Premier League team to not have a league top scorer in excess of twenty goals this century.
The last player to score more than 20 goals in a season for West Ham, believe it or not, was Tony Cottee (pic). The striker who just has turned 54 on July 11, scored 22 goals in the 1986/87 season. The season before, Frank McAvennie scored even more goals, hitting the net 26 times in the First Division when the “boys of 86” achieved West Ham’s all time best finish in the top flight! Together Cottee/McAvennie scored 46 league goals that season when the Hammers came a close third behind Liverpool and Everton winning 26 of their 42 games.
Long time gone … but in Pellegrini we trust! And in his director of sports, Mario Husillos, who hopefully will engineer an other transfer – like the one that brought new midfielder Pablo Fornals to West Ham United recently!
Pablo Fornals who won the European U21 championship 2019 with Spain at the London Stadium
There seems to be some doubt though at West Ham that the Argentinian director of sports will be able to bring arguments weighty enough to lure Haller from Frankfurt to the London Stadium: media reports emerged that in this transfer case additional help by other agents, Willie McKay or Kia Joorabchian, had been called into action to help completing the deal.
Kia is still well known at West Ham: he acted as the “owner” of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano when the two Argentinians were transferred to West Ham in 2006 (with an illegal “third party clause” in their contracts which cost the Hammers dearly), and in recent times he is said to have been involved in the transfer of Felipe Anderson. Well, let’s hope the Irons will get their striker with a good deal in the end!
Come on you Irons!
Article also published with West Ham Till I Die
Winning Start for West Ham
Carlos Sanchez, Michail Antonio and Issa Diop were on target for West Ham United as they got their pre-season campaign off to a good start with a 3-2 win over Austrian outfit SCR Altach.
Goalkeepers Roberto and David Martin made debuts, while Winston Reid and Andriy Yarmolenko made successful returns from injury.
Watch the highlights here.
EXTRA TIME 
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