Report | West Ham tried to tempt former bad boy striker back to London. The desperation to sign a striker in the window just gone apparently swept all other considerations aside. Even, according to an eyebrow-raising report today, trying to re-sign a former striker who’d forced an exit from the club and alienated most of the fan base, his team mates and the board just a few short years ago.
Rumours were doing the rounds in November – as we reported. Now it would seem that there were more than ‘rumours’: Whether fact or fiction, there is a report today from sportwitness.co.uk claiming that in the window just gone: “West Ham United made an attempt to bring Marko Arnautovic back to the club from Inter Milan but found themselves rejected by the Austrian.”
After the controversial ‘Arnie’ forced his way out of his contract – thanks in part to his less than conciliatory agent who was his brother – when he decided he’d had enough and wanted a lucrative transfer to Chinese club Shanghai SIGP, Arnautovic was unlikely ever to return.
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Vic Chair Karren Brady was particularly frank about him and I cannot for one second imagine the board sanctioning his return, no matter that he scored 22 goals in 65 games and was Hammer of the Year in his first season.
Divisive on, and off the pitch – Marko Arnautovic
No stranger to controversy, the Austrian was known to have been the bad boy of Austrian / Serb football with pretty unpleasant racist accusations against him: Suffice to say he’d have been an immensely divisive figure in the West Ham dressing room just as the Lopetegui-induced scars were healing.
Fortunately it seems, whether by luck or judgement, common sense prevailed and the Hammers dodged an Arnautovic shaped bullet. The club and supporters have the far more popular and promising figure of Evan Fergusonto enjoy instead.
