West Ham United manager earns ‘brilliant’ praise from BBC pundit after Flynn Downes signing
Three new signings have arrived at West Ham United so far this summer and more should follow through the doors before the season begins.
The Hammers’ most recent purchase was that of Swansea City midfielder Flynn Downes who arrived at Rush Green for a fee of £12million to offer competition for Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek.
BBC pundit Carlton Palmer is very impressed with this piece of business and believes that a switch to West Ham is a dream come true for the 23-year-old.
“It was difficult for West Ham last season,” Palmer said to Football League World. “They were having a very, very good season, but obviously with Europe, they didn’t have the strength in depth.
“Downes, he has had sort of a meteoric rise, you know, he was at Ipswich and then went to Swansea for one season and then now moving to the Premier League.
“He’s a West Ham supporter. It’s a dream come true for the lad. It’s brilliant business by David Moyes again, 12 million for a player that’s got a very, very bright future ahead of him.”
Options
At £12million, Downes hasn’t come in to be the headline signing of the summer of someone who will change the way we play in attack or defence.
He is purely another option in midfield which means we no longer have to play Rice and Soucek every single week because the backup choices are not up to standard.
We have to look at the loan signing of Alex Kral last summer as a mistake which led to us having to overwork our starters at times and with Downes now in the squad, they can both have more rest this season than they did last.
The issue arises though that we’ve also seen Mark Noble retire so we are effectively one midfielder down and need to address that fairly soon although it shouldn’t be an issue early on in the campaign.
But Palmer is absolutely right that the deal to sign Downes was very shrewd by the club and let’s hope there are more like that to come.