West Hammered

West Ham will seek to sell Roberto in January and look increasingly likely to part ways with Mario Husillos, the director of football responsible for bringing the goalkeeper to the club last summer. Roberto has lost his place to David Martin after a string of poor performances and West Ham are keen to replace the 33-year-old Spaniard, who was supposed to provide back-up for Lukasz Fabianski after replacing Adrián on a free transfer. The former Espanyol player made a series of high-profile errors after Fabianski suffered a long-term hip injury in September and he has become a divisive issue within the club.

West Ham are unhappy with Husillos for recommending Roberto. The signing was sanctioned by Manuel Pellegrini, who is under renewed pressure after his team’s limp defeat by Wolves on Wednesday, and it has left Husillos in a difficult position. Husillos and Pellegrini wanted to make Roberto their No 1 goalkeeper before Fabianski was signed from Swansea in 2018.
It soon became clear that Roberto was not good enough when he came in for Fabianski, who has an outside chance of returning for the trip to Crystal Palace on Boxing Day. West Ham slid towards the bottom three after picking up two points in the six league games Roberto started, leaving Pellegrini’s future in doubt.
West Ham’s players did not trust Roberto and they were more solid at the back when Pellegrini finally bowed to pressure replace him with Martin for last weekend’s shock win at Chelsea. Martin kept his place for the 2-0 defeat by Wolves and it is doubtful that Roberto will play for the club again.
West Ham, who have cooled their interest in Jordan Archer, want to sign a new No 2 goalkeeper in January. However they are aware that it may be difficult to fetch a fee for Roberto, who has 18 months left on a contract worth £30,000 a week, and will consider loaning him if they do not have to pay his wages. It is thought that Turkey is a possible destination.
The deal has raised doubts about Husillos’s eye for a player. West Ham are dissatisfied with the Argentinian’s work in the transfer market – questions have also been asked about the decision to spend £24m on Pablo Fornals last summer – and have reservations about giving him more money to spend.
West Ham may review Husillos’s position at the end of the season and will not stand in his way if he wants to leave before then.

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Kind of random to post this, but I don't think I've ever seen a fall-out like this from just one signing, especially that of a reserve goalkeeper. Both the director of football and the manager may well lose their jobs over this.

@Beamrider, any comment?

 

And they let Adrian go for nowt. Played 10 won 10. Have that you dirty cockney cunts

 

Just noticed West Ham's goalkeeping coach is Xavi Valero, who worked under Rafa Benitez.

https://www.whufc.com/news/articles...ero-west-ham-coach-who-has-worked-worlds-best

https://www.whufc.com/news/articles...r-coach-valero-hails-hammers-stopper-signings

Article:

Speaking about both of his new charges in turn, Valero is looking forward to working with compatriot Roberto who, at the age of 33, has played at the highest level across Europe for well over a decade.

“Roberto has huge experience,” the coach confirmed. “He has played in Spain, Greece and Portugal for some big clubs and has had some very good seasons.

“He came through a very good school for goalkeepers at Atletico Madrid, then went on to play for Benfica and Olympiacos, where he played for clubs with huge expectations, winning titles and playing many games in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League.

“Alongside his great experience, Roberto has the physicality, mentality and quality to perform in the Premier League and I know he will provide healthy competition for Lukasz Fabianski, who himself had an excellent season last year.”

Valero was also glowing in his praise for Martin, who he will be reunited with a decade after working together for the first time, and who has since enjoyed a fine career with the likes of Leicester City and Milton Keynes Dons in the English Football League.

“David is a goalkeeper who I knew at Liverpool, where I worked with him between 2007 and 2009 as a young player. He has since gone on to gain great experience and play a lot of first-team matches, mostly with MK Dons, and I believe he has developed the skills needed to be a fine modern goalkeeper, most notably his adaptability, distribution, reading of the game and decision making.

“His personality will be very positive for the group, too. When you are a member of the first-team squad, you need to be ready to play, and I believe David has the quality and mentality to do so.

“The Premier League is very demanding, with the pace, speed and physicality of the game here being different to any other league, but I feel we are well covered with goalkeepers who have the attributes needed to be successful for West Ham.”

 

There's a lot of money sloshing around in football and there will always be a suspicion when a player is signed and is clearly not up to the standard. You can kind of understand that sometimes players just don't perform as expected but when they're clearly not up to it there's often something fishy behind the scenes.
I do think that sometimes players are signed either as a favour to the agent (e.g. because they missed out on a fee on a previous deal for some technical reason) or to keep them sweet for a future bigger deal. It was suggested that the signing of Bebe by Man U was basically to appease an agent who owned a share of his financial rights (so rather than paying a big agent fee, the club gets the money to the agent in another form). It's one of the reasons why FIFA is so keen on getting rid of third party ownership.

 

Thanks, that's actually an insightful answer.

 

Yeah, not too many of those around these parts usually.

 

Insightful?

Careful now, down with this sort of thing!