In the past fans have always been highly suspicious of financial fair play limitations being rolled out as an excuse for West Ham United's 'tepid' recruitment policy, and perhaps there suspicions may have been justified, but that was in the past. However few can doubt that the Hammers board have dug deep this season to provide Manuel Pellegrini with the squad and fire power required to pursue a comfortable mid table position with the possibility of Europa League qualification.
It is just as well that Pellegrini was backed to the hilt, because otherwise the catastrophic injuries sustained by the squad would have ravaged the club in days gone by due to the bare bones practice of cobbling together the fit and the unfit equally until the fit became unfit. Unfortunatley such has been the extent of injuries sustained, that the club desperately need a couple more players in during the January transfer window in order to maintain the recent good progress and banish any thougths of relegation.
The problem is financial fair play, it doesn't seem to effect Manchester City or Chelsea many will say, but that is because one club is owned by a country, and the other a club owned by someone as rich as a country! West Ham is a different kettle of fish, the club cannot call upon it's own airline to sponsor the Stadium or construction company to sponsor the bollards outside the Stadium at £30,000 per year each, as PSG do!
So bearing the financial restrictions in mind there is very little, if any, money in the kitty to fund new arrivals, to that purpose the proposed signing of Samir Nasri makes sense for all parties. “Yes, we are going to take the decision probably next week,” Pellegrini said when asked about Nasri’s situation. “Samir is working with us very well, he is reducing his weight, his mentality is to have a spot here in the squad so it is a decision we will make in the next days.”
Pellegrini has refused to comment on transfer rumours to this point, but admitted West Ham may need to do some business in January. The original £80,000 per week Hammers were supposedly to have offered Nasri is believed to be way off the mark and £55,000 is much more accurate, he would initially be signed until the end of the season.
“I am happy with the squad,” Pellegrini added. “I know that we need to replace players that probably will not play much more this season like Yarmolenko, Sanchez, Lanzini so we are calm, we will decide not now what we are going to do but we will decide.” One such player on the radar is Gary Medel, four years ago he finished bottom of the Premier League with Cardiff City, Hammers are interested in signing the 31-year-old from Besiktas and are due to travel to Turkey for talks this week. Manuel Pellegrini is understood to be a big fan of Medel, a fellow Chilian who won the Copa America twice in 2015 and 2016, and wants to try and tie the deal tied up as soon as possible.
Medel would cost £5 Million, and unfortunately that shortfall might end up having to be financed by the sale of Reece Oxford, financial fair play it is not. It is not the club's fault, it is just that the FFP rules currently do the exact opposite to that which they were intended for, they were supposed to 'level the playing field', instead they have just helped to widen the gap. - Ed
