Things were all looking rosy for West Ham United over the summer, with the London club moving into their new home and keeping hold of all their key talents like Dimitri Payet. One area of concern was the lack of any real investment, with David Gold and David Sullivan opting to bring in players on loan rather than permanent signings.
That led to a poor set of results and performances to boot at the start of the season, including a lacklustre loss at home to Southampton at the weekend. The fans clearly aren’t impressed with the current situation, particularly after coming so close to finishing in a Champions League place last term.
The Croatian manager is clearly trying to put that right, but he hasn’t been helped out by his players in the slightest. Bilic sanctioned a team bonding exercise for the players, which reportedly led to both Andy Carroll and Darren Randolph taking it too far.
Pictures of the pair emerged online, showing them drunk at around midday in London, and they even stopped off for an early morning McDonalds to try and cure their hangovers. Now, reports have emerged stating that West Ham plan to investigate the situation, and rightly so. As professionals, this really isn’t the proper way to act, especially given how poorly the team are playing at the moment.
As previously discussed, West Ham have opted to bring in new signings on loan this season rather than purchasing new footballers outright. One man they spent a pretty substantial fee on despite the deal only being short-term was Simone Zaza.
Now, the Daily Star say that The Hammers are now exploring the option of sending Zaza back to Juventus so they don’t have to pay any further fees for the forward. West Ham paid £4.3million for a season-long loan deal and were required to spend close to £20million to make the deal permanent.
However, after a less than impressive start to life at the Olympic Stadium, Bilic is already looking at the possibility of cutting this deal short in order to save himself that £20million which could be spent elsewhere.
It feels like pure bad news for West Ham today. ESPN say that contract talks with their talented Englishman Reece Oxford have stalled, and that has boosted Manchester United’s pursuit of the 17-year-old who made his first-team debut last season.
Oxford has eighteen months remaining on his current deal, but all parties cannot agree on a suitable package to extend that contract at this point in time. There is no time to worry just yet as there is still plenty of time left for a new contract to be sorted. However, with Jose Mourinho and the Red Devils around, that’s easier said than done.
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