David Moyes reveals why West Ham United did not sign Julian Alvarez before Manchester City transfer
David Moyes reveals that he did not sign Julian Alvarez before his Manchester City move because Michail Antonio was performing well at West Ham.
Appearing on the Diary of a CEO podcast on 16 January, Moyes was asked about the players that he missed out on and he named the Argentine striker.
Alvarez made headlines for all the right reasons at the World Cup in Qatar and played a key role in guiding the South American nation to the trophy.
“Just recently, because we’ve been talking about it, Alvarez who has just played for Argentina in the World Cup, I bought in a new scout who says ‘Look, you should go for Alvarez at River Plate, Moyes told the Diary of a CEO podcast at 38:32.
“I watched him and I thought he was a very good, really good technician and I thought he done so many good things as a centre forward but I thought maybe not quite the one we want, we had Micky Antonio who had been doing very well and I thought I don’t know.”
Big mistake
It goes without saying that Moyes has made a big mistake by not listening to the scout who quite clearly told him to go for Alvarez.
The reason clubs have scouts is to get ahead of the market and sign players before everyone starts talking about them.
West Ham do not have the pull or financial power to sign players like him ahead of Manchester City and that’s an important thing to consider.
Alvarez would’ve been an exceptional option for the future and would’ve arrived but a high resale value as well.
Now that he’s at City, we do not see him leaving any time soon unless something dramatic happens behind the scenes.
He’s just 22 and already is looking like the real deal so we cannot wait to see just how he develops in the coming years as there’s a solid player in the making and unfortunately West Ham lost their golden chance to sign him.