Loan players. Football mercenaries or short-term saviours? West Ham have had their fair share of both, from the fireworks created by Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard’s spell at West Ham to the red-card laden damp-squib loan of Manchester City’s Kalvin Phillips. Indeed, the 2024-5 version of a loan non-event would have to be Evan Ferguson’s utterly pointless loan with a handful of minutes and zero impact doing nothing for the young man[‘s confidence nor West Ham’s performance.
I’ll bet Brighton aren’t best pleased either. Ferguson will no doubt be heading back to The Amex with little accomplished. But he may not be leaving London Stadium alone.
West Ham’s midfielder on loan Carlos Soler is reported today by psgtalk.com as being a candidate for following Ferguson down to the south coast don the blue and white of Brighton and Hove Albion next season. The £17m rated midfielder is not staying on after his season at West Ham – on huge £200k a week wages he is beyond the Hammers’ budget and hasn’t pulled up any trees anyways.
Most Read on West Ham News
Soler – southbound?
According to the PSG Fan site, Soler is keen on staying on the Premier League and has, according to their tweet/X post, a chance of playing for Brighton and Hove Albion next season.
Another experienced professional heading out of the door: Whilst he is not the be-all-and-end-all in West Ham’s midfield, the drain of experienced players could leave a disconcerting lack of expertise and leadership next summer. From the sublime to the ridiculous.
If Rodriguez, Soucek and Alvarez are to be sold as has often been suggested, just the pedestrian James Ward-Prowse (main pic) is likely to remain at the club. Now he was a decent player five years ago but not, perhaps the figure West Ham fans would choose to build a new midfield around.