• £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
