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Potter needs an attacker | Getty Images
West Ham are being linked with a struggling winger, but they can’t afford to take the risk.
West Ham continue to be linked with a move for a winger who is desperate to find a new club this summer. The Hammers still have a lot of work to do this summer, with the Iron getting off to a slow start to the window.
There have been signings, with El-Hadji Malick Diouf, Mads Hermansen, Callum Wilson and Kyle Walker-Peters snapped up, but with the likes of Mohamed Kudus and Edson Alvarez leaving the club, Graham Potter needs more quality and depth.
With the exit of Kudus, West Ham need another winger, and one mooted solution is Chelsea veteran Raheem Sterling, who needs to find another club this summer. Football Insider say the Hammers are in talks over a deal. Sterling endured a tough loan spell with Arsenal last season, featuring sporadically behind Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.
Sterling did not impress with the game time he had, but in his defence, he never got the opportunity to play regular football, and that is no easy task for an attacker.
Arteta acknowledged Sterling’s struggles in February of last season. Asked if he could still make an impact, the Spaniard said at the time: “Yes, and he needs to have it because we really need him. It’s onto the next one, but Raheem is so experienced and like many other players that we know that what you did yesterday, whether it was really good or not, could be relevant to the next game or to the next action. He’s fully focused, he trained really good again this week and he’s ready to go again.”
Sterling has plenty of experience in the Premier League, and he did have some good spells with Chelsea prior to be cast aside by Enzo Maresca at the start of last season.
But he is not going to be available for much less than £20million, and after last season, he will be seen as a risky signing this summer. The question is whether West Ham can afford to make risky signings at this juncture, coming off the back of a disastrous season that, while this season has started in the same way, with a 3-0 defeat to newly promoted Sunderland.
Financially, the Hammers may be able to take the risk, but can Potter afford to take such a risk? Potter has been backed by Vice-chairman Karren Brady, who has promised the Englishman time, but the reality of the situation is that Brady and the West Ham chiefs are going to have to think seriously about Potter’s future if we get to mid-September and West Ham are in a similar vein of form to what they have been for the last year or so, much of which Potter was responsible for.
There aren’t many signings who are guaranteed to succeed or close to it, that is the nature of transfer business, but Sterling is 30 years of age and extremely low on confidence in what will be seen as a vital season as he looks to salvage his career.
That’s too much baggage for a West Ham who are in a tricky situation as things stand. They need to be spending £20million on a winger who is in form and full of confidence, someone who can make an instant impact. That is not Sterling.
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