2nd February 2026 Daniel Luker (@danielluker_)
By Louis Nixon
West Ham aren’t known for their January windows and in fact, the club tend to stay away from major incomings, but it’s been more woeful than ever imagined.
The Hammers had an excellent start to the transfer window. The club saw the arrivals of two strikers within the space of a couple of days and it appeared that the board would be taking this window seriously, given the circumstances that we were in, but it was a farce.
Since the signings of Taty and Pablo, we’ve only made one other first-team signing, Adama Traore. Whilst Nuno was able to finally get a player he’s been crying out for, it also meant that he hadn’t had his wishes granted of a central defender and now comes deadline day, the Hammers still seem to be pondering whom to get, with Axel Disasi at the forefront.
However, just because we haven’t acquired all of our targets, that doesn’t make it an unsuccessful window, it’s much more than that. The problem we have here is that whilst in a relegation fight and in serious trouble, the club have focused on making a profit in this transfer window, rather than actually backing the manager to the extent he requires to provide success for the Hammers.
West Ham United have earned £50m from transfers, only spending £46m, this isn’t including add-ons, so it could’ve been much more! Not to mention that the Hammers have also saved over £15m on wages per season! We had a massive wage reduction in the Summer window, and now we’ve had another in January. This is asset stripping, not successful business.
You can’t have a failure of a summer window followed by an unsuccessful winter window and expect results to come from thin air.
Nuno was crying out for two strikers, and upon finally receiving them, we’re now playing some of the best attacking Football we’ve seen at this club in a long time. Why not give him some capable defenders too? If he can do it with the attack, he can do it with the defence too.
To fathom that we’d be in profit this January window is simply unacceptable. This is a season where this club’s future depends on and without surviving relegation, who knows what’s to come for the following years or perhaps decades of this Football club.
Whilst deadline day could perhaps spring some surprises, it’s utterly embarrassing that we’ve left it this late, and I suspect that Nuno will be pressuring the board to get someone in, given that his hand is, at the moment, forced on who will play against Burnley on Saturday.
Player profit whilst batting relegation is a damning reality of how far the apple has fallen from the tree