Part 3: English Premier League - Biggest failures of the summer transfer window
A club which is already off to a disastrous start in the 2010-2011 English Premier League season, West Ham United were also one of the flops of the 2010 summer transfer window. There is a famous English proverb that Barking dogs seldom bite and this has turned out to be quite true for West Ham United and its owners Messrs Gold and Sullivan.
A lot of noise was made by the relatively small London club with regard to big name signings that were due at the club. Names like David Beckham (yes the Beckham who played for Manchester United and Real Madrid), Ruud Van Nistelrooy (yes Beckham’s team mate at United and then at Madrid) and Henry, who went on to play at Barcelona after captaining Arsenal, were linked to Upton Park. But sadly for the Hammers, none of this materialized into something probable.
Even after appointing Avram Grant as their manager, West Ham were unable to attract any reputable stars as their dwindling fortunes have now landed them at the bottom of the English Premier League with zero points from their first three games of the season. In the several last hours of the deadline day of the summer transfer window, more realistic names such as Ryan Babel and Tottenham’s Robbie Keane came to the fore but alas, Grant’s employers were unable to give him a reason to smile.
The people who suffered the most from this rise of expectations and then the inevitable anti-climax are West Ham United’s supporters. People who turn up game after game despite their football club’s horrible form and a mediocre squad, now these individuals have to showcase their delight at watching footballers like Tal Ben Haim and the overweight Benny McCarthy.
A club which is already in dire financial straits will not benefit from such signings as no fan would want a home jersey signed by Ben Haim or pay to see him from the stands in London. Such an attitude will surely mean a loss in revenue for West Ham United and let’s not forget that they are still to play 35 more league games this season.
Aston Villa, who coincidently played West Ham in their first league match of the season are one of the few ill-fated football clubs that failed to sign other than rejects in the summer. Villa acted quite unintelligibly when they parted ways with Martin O’Neill in the second week of August, back then most of the people thought that the Birmingham club would find themselves a replacement for the ex-Celtic manager within a space of seven or at the maximum ten days.
However, it has now been exactly thirty four days and Villa are still without a permanent manager. In the summer transfer window, Villa only made one signing in the shape of Manchester City’s rejected material also known as, Stephen Ireland. They lost their most prized midfielder, James Milner to City and despite making a healthy profit off of his sale, Villa failed to address their squads’ shortcomings. It was expected that Aston Villa will make a move for a left back to compensate for the loss of Shorey and Bouma in the transfer window but that didn’t happen. It was also expected that they would go for Bellamy to act as a backup for Ashley Young and Agbonlahor but that didn’t happen as well.
Lately, Aston Villa only managed to submit a 22 man squad to the English Premier League on the 1st of September 2010. It looks like Kevin MacDonald, who is their caretaker manager currently, is prepared to work with the limited resources he has at the club. But will those assets prove enough for the Villains as the Premier League matches come thick and fast after the season starts again after the two week international break, only time will tell.
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