Aaron Cresswell and Lukasz Fabianski leaving means West Ham will lack leaders next season, and the Hammers could make the most crazy signing to replace them. 

It looks like the West Ham United squad could be in for a bog rebuild this summer with lots of departures and arrivals planned, however, some of the players that are leaving or could be set to leave could leave a big hole in the squad.

Cresswell, Fabianski and Coufal are leaving the club in July when their contracts expire. Edson Alvarez looks very likely to leave, as does Tomas Soucek, despite protests from Hammers fans.

While these players, apart from Soucek aren’t that important to the team, they are definitely important members of the squad in the dressing room, in terms of leadership and experience. So, these players need to be replaced with a couple of players with those traits because it’s something the rest of the squad lacks.

Max Kilman will 100% be a West Ham player next season, so it would be good to see him step up and almost take Cresswell’s role as Jarrod Bowen’s vice captain and be a big voice on and off the pitch. We’ve lacked a real backbone this season and someone needs to step up, but it would also be good to bring in a leader to the team.

The game really lacks real leaders, especially players of a decent age and quality. Brighton’s Adam Webster has been mentioned, he isn’t quite the quality of player we want to sign, however he was really impressive under Potter before and he knows his system to a tee.

Apart from that, you’re looking at players from bigger teams in the Premier League and in Europe that could bring their experience and wisdom to the West Ham squad. When you think of that, you immediately think of Kevin De Bruyne, but as we all know, there is absolutely zero chance of that happening.

Another name that sounds absolutely crazy, but I actually don’t think it would be completely unrealistic, would be Luka Modric. This obviously goes completely against Potter’s aims of making the squad younger, but he’s exactly what the club needs. Despite being 40 years old, he was still a very important player in Madrid last year and would come in and be our best midfielder easily.

Modric was desperate to stay at Real Madrid, and the club have only just decided to let him go which shows it was a tough decision. Modric is far from done at the top, while we’re as nowhere near the top as Real Madrid, he’s more than still good enough to play in the Premier League, rather than a move to MLS or back to Croatia for example.

There is probably no chance the former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder joins the Hammers this summer with his status, age and Potter’s willingness to decrease the average age of the squad. But, if we can somehow make it happen on decent wages, I really do think we’d be fools to turn it down.