Julen Lopetegui may still have a massive budget at his disposal despite not being able to sell Lucas Paqueta.
When news broke that Lucas Paqueta had been charged with breaches of match fixing surrounding 4 yellow cards he received, it shocked everyone at West Ham. The Hammers were expecting the case to be dropped and, as a result, it chucked a massive spanner in the works regarding their transfer window.
Everyone was expecting the Brazilian to finally secure his move to Manchester City, but now that looks almost certain to not happen. With that, the club has lost out on £85 million from his release clause – an amount that would have certainly made up a substantial amount of the release clause.
Thankfully, while this doesn’t necessarily mean they will spend that much, Sean Whetstone has provided an extremely positive update, claiming that the recruitment team could have £100 million to spend on players still. “Assuming Lucas Paqueta does NOT now leave this summer West Ham should have around £100m to spend on transfers,” he posted on X.
“That is based on around £30m net spend budgeted for finishing 9th this season plus £30m of additional revenue from the Europa League plus £40m of player sales assuming Benny [Said Benrahma] is sold £15m and Downes is sold around £15.5m on top of Kehrer already sold for £9.5m.”
“Further player sales such as Aguerd, Ings, Antonio or James Ward-Prowse would add more to the summer transfer pot.”
It’s a staggering amount and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see many of those players go, except Ward-Prowse. You’d assume that he is someone that the club would be keen to keep hold of due to being homegrown, a great leader and an overall good player.
Ultimately, if the board does give £100 million to Steidten and Lopetegui, then that should be more than sufficient to make good progress on the rebuild.
