West Ham United jobs now at risk amid transfer failures after three months’ work wasted to lose Harvey Barnes to Newcastle United
West Ham missed out on Harvey Barnes to Newcastle after a “reset” when Tim Steidten was hired saw work since April wasted and the opportunity lost, The Guardian reports.
The Irons’ transfer window has flopped amid “tension” between the new technical director, who only arrived in July, and manager David Moyes, with no signings brought in so far and insiders calling the situation a “mess”.
There are reportedly doubts as to how long either will last if the season starts badly, and head of recruitment Rob Newman is now also facing the sack amid a very difficult state at the London Stadium.
According to Jacob Steinberg in The Guardian (29 July) Steidten: “Some wonder whether he will last. Others suggest that Moyes, who has lost Mark Warburton and Paul Nevin from his backroom staff this summer, will go if West Ham start badly.”
He went on: “These are uncertain times. Moyes has worked closely with Rob Newman, who was appointed as head of recruitment two years ago, but West Ham felt a change was necessary.
“They were unhappy with their transfer business under Moyes and Newman, whose position is under threat, while considering that [Mark] Noble needs more support as in his role as sporting director.
“Yet the complication caused by hiring Steidten when the transfer window was open is best encapsulated by West Ham losing out to Newcastle in the race to sign Harvey Barnes from Leicester.
“West Ham had been working on the deal since April, but a reset after Steidten joined meant the opportunity to purchase a winger who would have been an upgrade on Moyes’s options on the left flank disappeared.”
Squandered
It is difficult to pinpoint one key issue when it looks like various different areas of the club are working against it each other, and nothing is getting done as a result.
Sticking with Moyes after winning the Europa Conference League was a reasonable decision, but if the West Ham board was going in that direction then it doesn’t make sense to then bring in Steidten less than a month later.
Those that hired the German must have known what his ideas were and it doesn’t take a genius to realise they don’t tie up with the manager’s.
Moyes would be within his rights to feel that after last season’s struggles with signings that struggled to adapt he had been backed to go back to his own ways this summer.
Steidten would equally expect to have his views make an impact since he was literally just brought in, and if the two can’t see eye to eye the club now has to undermine one of them by definition.
The only alternative is to not commit either way and get left behind, as appears to have happened with Barnes, and will only continue to do so as deadline day approaches.
Moyes, Steidten, and Newman surely bear there share of responsibility but at this point it is hard to point the finger of blame anywhere but those at the top that put them all together and expected it to work.
In other West Ham news, a long-time favourite has made a plea to David Sullivan to let him go after three bids failed from a Premier League club.
