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West Ham shown the way forward – by Sunderland

As reported earlier, [West Ham](https://www.claretandhugh.info/reported-second-offer-will-kickstart-west-hams-window/) have now receive, it appears,  a second offer for unsettled defender Nayef Aguerd who has been on a season-long loan at Spain’s Real Sociedad. It seems surprising that a deal to sell wasn’t packaged up during last season: Aguerd was known to be reluctant to ever set foot at London Stadium again.

It highlights the backward step taken by the club after the failings of the trio of Steidten, Sullivan and Lopetegui to pull together a squad with depth last summer. Because the personnel were wrong it doesn’t not mean the  model was faulty but the Hammers in 2025 have decided to press on without a Director of Football purely responsible for their deal-making.

Contrast this to just about every other Premier League club: A report produced twelve months ago by [givemesport.com](https://www.givemesport.com/every-premier-league-club-sporting-director-football/) showed almost every Premier League side had a ‘Sporting Director/Director of Football’ figure to handle the deal making and the negotiations.

Whilst many of those personnel haven’t lasted a year, most clubs still separate the DOF role from the ‘Head Coach’ as the old fashioned ‘Manager’ is simply too big a role for one person, as Graham Potter is no doubt discovering. More than likely a Dan Ashworth – type figure would have sales ready to go by now. We’ll never know.

However, look at the signs: The Roma Director of Football who initiated the Aguerd offer, Florent Ghisolfi, is heading away from Italy and about to take up a new role- _in the Premier League as Sunderland Director of Football._

As other Premier League clubs follow the tried and tested’ new ways’ , it seems the Hammers are stuck in the 1970’s with the chairman or vice chair aiming to ‘do the deals’. Is Tim Steidten watching on from somewhere warm and sunny, toes in the sand, chuckling at the Hammers’ misfortunes? Quite possibly.

West Ham fans will think they know exactly how this ends.

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