West Ham United want to replicate Brighton’s transfer model as they look to rebuild the squad under Graham Potter and Kyle Macauley. 

In an attempt to rebuild the squad from next season, West Ham have hired Kyle Macaulay as their new head of recruitment, the Englishman has been part of Graham Potter’s staff since he began coaching at Ostersunds in Sweden. He was also the man that brought players like Moises Caicedo, Alexis Mac Allister and Kaoru Mitoma to Brighton.

The Hammers have the oldest squad in the league with an average age of 28, more than two years older than the average age of the Brighton squad when Potter left for Chelsea, which was 25.7. West Ham fans have always wanted to move to this type of transfer strategy, from when we were promised the ‘red bull’ model under David Moyes, to Tim Steidten’s appointment. Hammers fans have had lot of opportunities to get their hopes out, but it is yet to work out.

While Moyes was largely successful in the transfer window, there wasn’t a strategy to focus on bringing in younger players, the Hammers were at least in the top three oldest squads in the Premier League in every single one of David Moyes’ seasons at the club and had the oldest in the league in both seasons Tim Steidten was technical director.

West Ham need to move away from signing players like Niclas Fullkrug, James Ward-Prowse, Guido Rodriguez and Danny Ings. These are players that were guaranteed to have little to no sell on value, and if they fail, like all of these arguably have, it’s just money clubs can’t afford to waste with the new PSR rules.

If West Ham could implement a similar strategy as Brighton did, and still do, it could really benefit the clubs future financially, and also on the pitch. Potter is known for his high energy, attacking and high pressing teams. This is a style of football that could really thrive with younger and more hungry players and bring West Ham back to chasing for European football. which every single fan wants to see.

Despite being at the club just a few weeks, we’ve already started to see a change. It’s been clear we needed a striker since Potter has arrived, however, he didn’t want to bring someone in for the sake of it. There was the option throughout the whole window for Potter to bring in RB Leipzig striker Andre Silva on loan for the remainder of the season, a proven striker with an excellent goals record around Europe.

However, Potter wasn’t convinced Silva would fit into his squad or suit his style of play and he wanted to wait for his main target, Evan Ferguson. The deal took it’s time, but it got done on transfer deadline day. So, Graham Potter now has the striker he wanted for the rest of the season which could really help turn it around.