Joint Chairman David Sullivan has given an interview to Hammers Press manager Paul Stringer which has been published on the official website WHUFC.com this this morning in which he says:
“The West Ham way is how we played in the first half against Liverpool – quick, strong tackling, everybody giving 100%, attacking and trying to score goals,”It’s about behaving in a responsible way, it’s playing with passion, playing attacking football and passing football. We were at Manchester United and they were back to the walls. The last half of that game we were entrenched in their half trying to score and they were kicking it out anywhere, panicking. We were the footballing side. I think it’s a very promising start and it could have been so much better. What’s good, aside from Southampton, are in all the games we’ve lost or drawn, we could’ve won. We could have beaten Tottenham, Hull and Manchester United, so we could’ve been on 18 points. What’s pleasing is that we haven’t looked bad against anybody so we, perhaps foolishly, think we can play against anyone and give them a run for their money. It’s very optimistic times at West Ham and we’ve got the best team we’ve had for many years.As a supporter, last season you go to every game thinking ‘how are we going to get anything from this?’ This year you think ‘how are we going to win this?’ We are looking to win games. We’ve bought good forwards and good players but you do need a bit of luck and you need players to hit the ground running and maybe we’ve had that bit of luck, We decided as a club that unless an outstanding older player came along we would sign younger players but that didn’t rule out anybody but we wanted attacking players. We signed two full-backs who can both bomb forward.
“We signed three forwards, Mauro Zarate, Enner Valencia and Diafra Sakho, who were the three top goalscorers in Argentina, Mexico and the French Ligue 2 respectively. We signed two fantastic midfielders and one for the future. They’ve all got a lot to prove and we’re not signing players at the end of their career on huge wages who are perhaps too comfortable. They are hungry players bought into the West Ham way, bought into working hard and as they achieve more they will be rewarded more.”
Ideally you’d love to do all of your business early but you’d want to hold some back for someone like Alex Song. The good thing was that because we had a bit of time we got good players in and didn’t have to make desperation buys. I don’t think people realise how many hours go into the transfer side and how stressful it is. For every player you buy you’ve probably tried to buy three or four more.“Sam and I spoke every day and we pursued targets that either he or I had identified. You work around the clock. On Alex Song, we were speaking to him at eleven or 12 at night to get him to get on a plane and come to us.With some agents you were negotiating with weeks and nobody can comprehend how stressful it is. It was the hardest window I’ve ever known. In the end I think it was our best transfer window by a long, long way. All of the players are incentivised to play and we want them to want to play and that’s all they want to do. We’ve got players that are desperate to do their bit for the Club.”
Watch the full interview on West Ham’s Official Youtube channel below: