It has become the mantra of 2025: West Ham need to sell before they can buy: Somewhat embarrassing for the 16th richest club in Europe with the tenth biggest attendance in world football. I’ll say that again. Tenth biggest attendance. But strapped for cash.
We’d all bought into the ‘can’t buy before selling’ doctrine and so have seen a number of ‘West Ham targets’ missed or snapped up by competitors already in the brief first summer window.
But a report which flashed across my screen this afternoon made me sit up and question that very mantra of selling before buying. If – and that is ‘IF’ in capitals – the report by sportwitness.co.uk is true it surely throws doubt on the ‘lack of funds’ West Ham narrative.
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The Hammers apparently attempted to ‘insert themselves’ – hijack – the deal between Napoli and Milan for promising midfielder Yunus Musah. Articles linking the Hammers with the former Valencia player go back months.
According to today’s report :
“Journalist [Daniele Longo] claims the 22-year-old has agreed personal terms ahead of a potential move to the Naples side and talks are ongoing between Napoli and Milan about a permanent transfer. Meanwhile, West Ham have tried to insert themselves in the scenario by attempting to hijack [ Napoli’s] approach. Despite that, everything points towards the fact that Napoli are at an ‘advanced stage’ in their talks and a fee of around €25m is close to being agreed.”
Well excuse me, if that is correct, then claims that the Hammers are skint cannot be true: Hijacking a €25 million deal cannot be carried out with points from a Nectar card. Time to see what our highly placed West Ham source has to say about it. Watch this space.