OPINION
Enough has been said and written about West Ham United’s need for an upgrade at left back in the upcoming January transfer window.
What the club needs is solutions, and they potentially have one staring them in the face just across London in the form of Crystal Palace star Patrick van Aanholt.
Not that it would be easy for the Hammers to sign the Dutchman, of course. The Sun reported earlier this week that Serie A giants Roma were preparing a £25million bid for the player.
That sum isn’t out of the realms of possibility for West Ham, indeed they’ve spent much more on players than that recently, but the challenge of snaring Van Aanholt from a club the size of Roma is the difficult part for Manuel Pellegrini’s side.
However, if they were able to do so then they would be getting a top class Premier League left back. Van Aanholt has proved during his time at Sunderland and Palace that he is capable of performing to a very high level week in week out in the top flight.
That’s what West Ham have been craving at left back this season: consistency. Van Aanholt is one of the finest attacking full backs in England, but his defending has steadily improved over the years.
His lightning pace makes him a difficult proposition for any winger, while his positioning and defensive awareness has come on leaps and bounds under Roy Hodgson.
There’s no doubt that the Hammers are a far more ambitious club than Palace, and a switch to the London Stadium could see Van Aanholt playing in Europe within a season or two.
For West Ham, players of Van Aanholt’s quality represent the key to the top six. Getting quality players in every position will enable the Hammers to gatecrash the upper echelon of the Premier League, and left back is the side’s one fatal flaw at this moment in time.
Pellegrini should be doing everything he can to convince the club to hijack Roma’s move for Van Aanholt. If they do, they could be heartily rewarded.