West Ham United’s recruitment policy relies on just a handful of scouts and agents in contact with owner David Sullivan, according to an inside source.
As reported in the Daily Mail, the source has claimed the Hammers’ system for identifying players is far below the standard needed to succeed in the Premier League, with owner Sullivan still heavily involved, in a damning assessment of their transfer policy.
The source is quoted as saying: “They have a handful of scouts and no target lists. The transfer policy seems to stem from the same four or five agents calling [co-owner] David Sullivan and telling him what he needs.
“I’ve not come across a Premier League club like it for sheer lack of football infrastructure. The Premier League income affords them this way to try to buy their way out of trouble. The rest of Europe just laughs at this kind of thing.”
The Hammers splashed out in a big way this summer as they brought in nine new faces for a total outlay approaching £100million.
OPINION
This is a seriously worrying claim about the Hammers recruitment policy, and one which fans will undoubtedly be hoping is not true. What is said about those four or five agents calling David Sullivan will ring bells for Irons fans after their seemingly random system for buying players over the past few seasons, but this summer looked to be different. Pellegrini seemed to identify his areas of weakness quickly and move immediately to remedy those. The calibre of player that the club brought in was clearly much higher than it has been in the past, and there seemed to be much more structure to the club’s recruitment. However, this latest claim seems to rubbish all that, with Sullivan said to still have a central role. Whatever the truth is, that policy has not worked out yet this season, with the Hammers losing their first four Premier League games on the bounce under Pellegrini.