Pellegrini & Husillos Effect Three In At Least Two More To Come

The 'Pilgrim' bandwagon has finally got it's wheels firmly on track as new West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini along with new head of recruitment Mario Husillos begin to shape the squad of players available according to their own blue print, first up on their rebuilding programme was to 'deal' with the team's chronic defence. Having already secured the services of Ryan Fredericks, 'Pel' and 'Hussi' have gone straight for the defensive jugular with the signings of Isso Diop from Nice and Lukask Fabianski from Swansea, effectively they have reconstructed a third of the defence already with more to come.

Quite rightly the defence had to be the starting point, fans will be bored and annoyed every time the fact that Hammers' had the equal worst record of goals conceded in the Premiership last season is trotted out, indeed had it not been for the fact that the club were the league's eighth highest scorers it would be Championship football on offer at the London Stadium for the 2018/19 instead of the Barclays Premier League! With a limited budget Pellegrini has already worked wonders and has put to bed the myth that he can only operate with the huge type of resources available at two of his prevous clubs Real Madrid and Manchester City, he obviously has a plan and intends to stick to it despite any possible interference from the Hammers' hierarchy, uniquely given their past history an event that fortunately has thus far not occured.

With possible moves still on for one of Felipe Anderson or Javier Pastore and moves for several others in the pipe line, one thing that is guaranteed is that there won't be any of the purported £75 Million transfer kitty left! In fact it is not inconceivable that the clubs owners will be asked to stump up a bit more than they had originally planned mainly due to Manuel Lanzini's injury but also due to other clubs' apparent lack of interest in those players who have been made available for sale.

Michail Antonio has supposedly been told that he will not be part of Manuel Pellegrini's plans and could maybe move to Crystal Palace who have been long term admirers of the player who cost West Ham £8 Million from Nottingham Forest three years ago, however it seems a little strange that 'El Pel' should come to a conclusion so rapidly especially bearing in mind Antonio is still recovering from the surgery he had to hopefully fix his long standing groin problem. If Antonio is sold it will have to be for decent money, he is one of the few players in the squad that other teams would actually want and represents one of the club's most saleable assets, therefore a substantial fee of around £25-30 Million would be in keeping with the sort of money being demanded by other clubs for England Internationals at the moment, whether they are selected for the national team currently or not.

So, with the defence virtually sorted the next appoinment will be crucial, who ever is brought in to the midfield to complement the addition of Isso Diop will eventually be the successor to captain Mark Noble who realistically has probably only got one more top flight season left in his tank, two at an absolute push. The new management team have a definite agenda regarding the age of players that they are interested in, the inevitable consequence will be the over seeing of the departure of the 'old guard' players in order to get the average age of the squad closer to 20 rather than 30 as it was.

There will definitely be a lot of new lockers in the Hammers' changing rooms by the start of the season, it will be interesting to see who the survivors will be! - Ed