• £5m would have secured Everton’s Yakubu
• Marc Wilson of Portsmouth would have cost West Ham £3m

After losing their opening three league games, West Ham’s hopes of avoiding a relegation struggle this season were dealt a further blow by their precarious finances preventing the purchase of Yakubu Ayegbeni and Marc Wilson during the transfer window.

While £5m would have bought Yakubu from Everton, only £3m was required to take Wilson, the Portsmouth captain, to Upton Park as Avram Grant, the manager, sought to strengthen his squad.

Under the Israeli, West Ham have scored only once in the league so far and their next match is the visit of the champions, Chelsea, on Saturday week, which suggests they could reach mid-September still pointless.

Following a net spend during the summer of £6m for the Mexico forward Pablo Barrera, the New Zealand defender Winston Reid and Lyon’s Frédéric Piquionne, loan deals or the sale of an established player were Grant’s only viable options for further recruitment.

Although Liverpool indicated a late interest in Carlton Cole before yesterday’s closing of the transfer window, which may have allowed Ryan Babel to join in his place, Grant’s preference would have been to keep the England striker while also adding a 15-goals-a-season striker to his squad, such as Yakubu.

While Barrera cost £4m and Reid £3m, they are 23 and 22 respectively and Grant has said they may need time to settle in. Piquionne’s ability to score enough goals to support Cole is also moot, after he managed only five in 34 appearances when on loan at Portsmouth last season.

There was better news for Grant, though, after the Premier League confirmed that Lars Jacobsen, a 30-year-old right-back, could join on a one-year deal from Blackburn Rovers after paperwork for the free transfer arrived close to yesterday’s 6pm deadline.

Kieron Dyer, meanwhile, the injury-plagued midfielder who has started West Ham’s last two league games, is confident the club’s form will improve. “We were disappointed again on Saturday,” he told the West Ham website. “Man United away is not going to determine how our season goes but it’s another 3-0 loss. It would have been good to get some kind of result just to get the confidence up. We’ve got two weeks now [ahead of Chelsea] and we’ve got to get the confidence from somewhere because when we do click and get it together, we are not a bad team.”

Dyer, who is now 31, added that Chelsea can be defeated: “We believe we can beat Chelsea. It’s a completely different game, a derby game and form will go out of the window. We’ll have the crowd and it’s one of those games where Scotty [Parker] gets in the tackles and gets the crowd going, so it’s going to be a completely different challenge to Man United. So who knows?

“The manager is trying to change the mentality of players and we have to change it because, like I said, we have to start winning games. We’re obviously playing catch-up already.

“Obviously last season was a massive struggle but where I’m coming from, for me personally, I’m just buzzing to play football again.”

David Sullivan, the co-owner, said tonight he was happy with West Ham’s recruitment he did hint at the club’s financial difficulties. He said: “We have combined youth with experience this window and are pleased with the work we have done, even in these challenging times for the club.”

West Ham UnitedTransfer windowJamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk

• ‘We must wait for 10-15 games to see our direction’
• Grant says West Ham are trying to sign new players

Avram Grant, the West Ham United manager, said there is no need for fans to panic about their start to the season unless they fail to improve after “10-15 games”. West Ham are bottom of the Premier League going into the international break following defeats in their opening three matches.

West Ham have never lost their first four league games but the leaders Chelsea, who have made a perfect start to the new campaign, are their next opponents in just under a fortnight. However, Grant said defeat to the champions would not spell disaster for his side.

“It’s only the beginning of the season so we cannot make any conclusions after three weeks,” he told the club’s official website. “We must wait for 10-15 games to see our direction. Chelsea is a tough fixture and I can’t ever remember a team at our level having such tough fixtures at the beginning of the season. But these are fixtures we have been given and, in football, anything can happen. We have two weeks to think about things. We can become stronger.”

Grant said it has been a real challenge to instil confidence in his side since taking charge this summer after they narrowly avoided relegation last term. But he said it is an easier job than the one he left at Portsmouth, who were mired in financial turmoil.

He said: “It’s not easy to keep the morale up – especially after last season – but I don’t like talking about last year because we do not need to be reminded about it. It’s not easy but I’ve told the players from the beginning that I want to see their character, both when they win and when they lose. It’s only the beginning of the season, and if we win two games, we will be as good as any other team.

“Last season, things were decided for me off the pitch but, this year, they will be decided on the pitch. It’s a big, big difference.”

Grant is still trying to sign players before tomorrow’s closure of the transfer window. But having already admitted he may need to sell before he can buy, speculation is rife over the Upton Park futures of Scott Parker, Carlton Cole and Valon Behrami. “We are trying to bring in new faces,” Grant said, adding: “we didn’t have players in the positions we needed them” following Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Manchester United.

Avram GrantWest Ham Unitedguardian.co.uk