West Ham United will NOT appoint a new technical director of football ahead of this summer’s transfer window.
It was widely expected that West Ham United would hire a new technical director after Tim Steidten left the club earlier this year. The German left after two controversial windows at the club, where some signings were successful and others were not.
The man who looked likely to join the club was former Brighton and Newcastle director of football Dan Ashworth. However, David Sullivan and the board opted against bringing in Ashworth, and he has now returned to the FA in the technical director role.
The transfers will now be trusted with four different people. Graham Potter and Kyle Macauley will be identifying the players, while Sullivan looks set to return to his favourite role of being the negotiator. Mark Noble, whose title is ‘Director of Football’, will have a crucial role in bridging the gap between the two.
Noble’s role as DOF isn’t quite as hands-on with the transfers as it usually is, with our former captain mainly focused on the youth side of things
Previously, we have done the Director of football thing completely wrong, so it’s probably a wise decision moving away from it. The first one we brought in arrived with Manuel Pellegrini in Mario Husillos. The second was hired during the David Moyes reign when the Scotsman really didn’t want to work with one.
The point of a director of football is for them to join the club, see what players he has to work with, and start the rebuild from there. From there, they can recruit the manager they believe would best suit the squad and the club, and then sign the players for that manager. If the DOF joins with a manager, or is given a manager to work with who doesn’t want to work with someone, it just isn’t going to go well.
While Sullivan probably isn’t the ideal man to be negotiating deals anymore, not having a DOF/technical director should make getting the players Potter and Macauley want a lot more likely, which can only really be a good thing for the team.
