West Ham fans have had a summer to remember, seeing their club win their first major trophy since 1980 and a European one at that.
Despite this, supporters have been left disappointed by the lack of signings the club has made. However, manager, David Moyes, has stated that the club are doing their best to bring in new faces, as he spoke to the media ahead of his team's Premier League opener at Bournemouth.
Finally making deals
The Hammers have only just made their first signing of the summer and, in doing so, have found their potential replacement for Declan Rice:
“We’re really pleased to have signed Edson Álvarez” Moyes confirmed.
“We’ve been working really hard on [recruiting] many players this summer, but it’s always good when you get one in and hopefully it will be like buses now and we might get a few more come in as well.”
Unfortunately for West Ham, Alvarez “won’t be available on Saturday though, as he hasn’t trained since the CONCACAF Gold Cup.”
The Scotsman went on to talk about players that could potentially be joining the East London side:
“James Ward-Prowse is having a medical with us today.”
“We’ve had a bid accepted by Manchester United” he continued, “but while he’s not my player I don’t think I’m in any place to discuss him really.”
"We’ve worked incredibly hard to bring players in. We’ve made offers for several players, more than several, and you can only make the offers and hope they get accepted. If they don’t get accepted, you can’t do much more than that."
Scamacca’s departure
After flashes of quality last season in East London, Gianluca Scamacca completed a return to Italy this summer, as his move to Atalanta cut his time at West Ham short, as a result of yet another big-money centre-forward not fitting in at the club.
Moyes admitted that he didn’t want to leave the club, but he had his heart set on returning to Italy:
“I was really disappointed that it didn’t work out with Gianluca Scamacca, because I like him a lot.”
“Gianluca didn’t want to be in England and we found it very difficult. He had his rehab from his injury back in Italy and wouldn’t participate with us here so we found it very hard.”
Interestingly, Moyes went on to confirm that Manchester City are interested in signing Lucas Paqueta, but a deal is far from being agreed.
He stated: “All I can say on Lucas Paquetá is we’ve had an offer from Manchester City. It’s not close enough to our valuation to make us think that way.”
Starting strong
The Irons make the trip down to Bournemouth to kick off the season, and Moyes admitted that he expects a tough game:
“I’ve always thought Bournemouth are a big test and they have been for many years.”
When speaking about the Bournemouth boss, Andoni Iraola, he concedes that it won’t be easy adapting to a new league:
“I made the transition to manage in Spain and it’s not easy going to manage in La Liga, just as I wouldn’t expect him to come to the Premier League and find it easy.”
“You have to have done something well to get in the Premier League these days and your past will have to stand up. Bournemouth must trust him a lot and it suits their model.”
Despite negativity from the fanbase, the veteran manager says that “we do come into the season with positivity,” on the back of winning the UEFA Europa Conference League. “We have a brilliant feeling from last year and we want to keep it” added the Scotsman.
Trophy aside, his side were poor in the league last season and he would be the first to admit this:
“It’s where you finish that matters in the end – we didn’t finish in the position we wanted to be last year, but we made sure we weren’t in the position we didn’t want to be.”
West Ham will be hoping to have a much better season in the Premier League and to be pushing for Europe, but with confidence at an all-time low and a lack of signings being available for the opening game, it is not looking like a promising start.
On top of this, no team has lost more opening games in the Premier League than West Ham and no manager has lost more than David Moyes.
Can they turn their fortunes round on the south coast, or will leaving their business late come back to bite them?