I wonder how fit Masuaku is. A lot of assuming he'll slot in at left back for West Ham but he's not done a pre-season.
No idea on Masuaku mate. What I can tell you though is there are pre-season training camps for out of contract players popping up these days. The PFA run one down the road from me and players can book on week by week. Some canny players there this year. They basically get a pre-season in terms of fitness work and there are games against local non-league or academy sides thrown in. Open invite to scouts any time. Upshot is if you are prepared to put yourself into the right place you can do your core pre-season even without a club.
Not massively excited about Masuaku signing. But adds some depth I suppose. Hopefully it doesn’t mean Cirkin is leaving! Another AFCON player as well? Just googled his last cap and the Google AI said he’s not been capped since 2019 - is that true? It’s plus if he’s going to be around while Reinildo is away.
I think expectations need to be simmered just a tad, we have just come up, we need to fill a squad with good depth, he hasn't come in to be the mainstay. He brings experience in the PL, coming off the back of a very good season for Besiktas, European experience. Solid on a free. Played 47 games last season, was in one of the TOTS in the Turkish league and was a regular in the Europa League for them too. We've just come up, you'd think some on twitter expect 20m dropped on backups too.
Wonder why no one has picked him up until now. That isn’t meant as a dig at the lad, genuine question because you’d think he’d have a load of offers with his cv
He also brings physicality which we were in short supply of at times last year. If we can get that from at least one of our centre backs we now have Ballard, Hume, Reinildo and Masuaka who can give out and take a few hits.
I'd say about £15m with maybe some conditional addons, not just the normal passing of time stuff. I like him myself, but he's 24 and no PL games yet. But he has played a lot and keeps improving, though I'm not sure up there would be right for him. They like "big names". They always have done, even before they morphed into the 92ers.
Just stumbled across this. Defoe talking about his phone call with Xhaka about where to live / what's the club like: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16miTo7mxG/
