West Ham Fan Mailbag: How much money will the club spend in January?
Every week we’ll be asking West Ham fans on Twitter and Facebook for questions that will be answered by our correspondent, Jack Cunningham. You can join in by liking West Ham Zone on Facebook and watching out for weekly mailbag posts.
West Ham are in a great position in all three competitions they are currently actively involved in.
In the league, they are still fourth, they finished top of their Europa League group, and they are into the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup.
However, they have suffered a couple of huge injury blows in recent weeks, and you would think that David Moyes will have to be active in January.
With that in mind, we asked for your burning questions on all things West Ham for our West Ham Zone correspondent Jack Cunningham to answer, and one fan wanted to know how much money the club would have to spend in January.
Thanks for the question, Steven.
Certainly, this is something that many Irons fans will probably want to know about.
Now, if you look at the finances, based on FFP, the Irons can spend an incredible £71million in this transfer window because of the way they have operated [Daily Mail].
Now, they aren’t going to do that, but that shows the scope for spending, then you have to factor in Daniel Kretinsky’s arrival, and you would have to say that the Hammers could really invest in their squad [Evening Standard].
Kurt Zouma and Angelo Ogbonna have been ruled out for a long period of time, so a new centre-back has to be a priority signing.
However, just how much they choose to spend on a new central defender remains to be seen.
Given that Zouma and Ogbonna are Moyes’ first-choice centre-backs, we doubt that the Scotsman would want to buy someone to disrupt that pair.
Therefore, we can’t see the Irons spending that much on a centre-back; they might not even spend any money at all and just bring someone in on loan.
The Hammers also need a striker, and this could be where they decide to splash the cash.
Michail Antonio isn’t getting any younger, so there will come a point when they need a new striker, and January could be that time.
The Irons have been linked with so many strikers, all for varying prices, but we can see the Hammers splashing out.
So, though it is hard to know exactly how much the Hammers are going to spend in January, we can see them making a significant investment to improve their squad.
In other West Ham news, the Irons are set to open contract talks with one Hammers star.
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