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Jordan Hugill..... On the 31st of January 2018, Hugill completed a deadline day move to West Ham United in a reported £10 million transfer deal, becoming manager David Moyes' second signing at the London Stadium after Robert Snodgrass. However he was restricted to a handful of brief cameos in the second half of the 2017–18 season, playing just 22 minutes in total!

As we discussed in yesterday's It's All Falling Into Place-Hammers Signings Update. West Ham are only a few players short of having a decent, if still painfully thin squad, one that will need to be padded out with a mixture of youth players and loanees in order for David Moyes to perform his 'loaves and fishes' magic with his woefully inadequate transfer kitty.

Perhaps it is the grim reality of how little there is in the Hammers transfer kitty that some of David Moyes' recently purported transfer targets do NOT fit into his young, fit, hungry and lean player template. Interest in 28 year old perennially injured Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain along with 30 year old Jens Stryger Larsen, who has been strongly linked with a move to the London Stadium from Udinese, will hardly inspire fans in the run up to the new season.

Fans relentless viewing of media snippets regarding player acquisitions will become more acute as the impending opening fixtures of the Barclays Premier League loom large. West Ham, along with several other top six clubs, appear to have done next to nothing about signing players and the 'natives' are understandably getting restless!

Many apologies to Celtic supporters for using a headline which will bring back painful memories of THAT night against Caledonian Thistle. This afternoon they filled as many seats as they were allowed for the friendly in the Sun against old boy, David Moyes's West Ham.

Manchester United's announcement of Jadon Sancho's signing will be the last opportunity for Jesse Lingard to make his 'should I go, or should I go?' decision. Sancho's arrival will knock Lingard further down the pecking order at Old Trafford, limiting his already sparse chances of playing 1st team football even more.

Nat Phillips is the latest Liverpool player to have been 'linked' with West Ham, the spin and rumour mill, essential elements of any tapping up process are already being put in place. You know the way it works, big club wants player from 'little' club, big club's manager publicly 'admires' player from little club, little club's player's head gets turned, big club's manager then says that he cannot discuss the destination of a player currently signed to another club.

Last season, David Moyes guided West Ham United to a superb sixth-place finish, bringing European football to the club for the coming campaign. However, throughout the season, it was abundantly clear that the Hammers need to reinforce or outright fill several areas of the pitch.

With 'transfer fever fully blown around the Barclays Premier League, particularly West Ham United's rivals, Hammers fans are beginning to feel increasingly edgy as the transfer window rumbles on with apparent complete inactivity from The London Stadium.

As we have already written before, over 90% of speculated transfer deals are complete bullshit with the remaining 10% only offering around a 1 in 10 chance of having any truth in them, so essentially only around 1% of what you read eventually turns out to be true.

Watching a free streamed game should have been pleasurable, but watching Hammers only striker running around filled Reading's Jeriel Dorsett, under pressure from Issa Diop, knocked the ball into his own net from a corner to give Hammers the lead as half-time approached at the Mad Stad. It was nothing more than the Irons deserved as the team looked to have a decent run out against 'determined opposition.