If there is the slightest glimmer of a silver lining surrounding the jet-black rainclouds hanging over West Ham United, it is the impending arrival of Monaco midfielder Soungoutou Magassa onto the Premier League stage.
It emerged on Tuesday that West Ham had beaten Nottingham Forest to the signing of the highly-rated France Under-21 international.
Magassa is expected to undergo a medical imminently before putting pen to paper on a six-year deal.
Now, the Hammers faithful did not need Dean Ashton to shine a light on those midfield deficiencies – both Tony Cottee and Tony Gale have already highlighted the obvious need for new recruits in the centre of the park – but the hope will be that Magassa’s arrival represents a massive step in the right direction.
The Monaco youngster has shades of a Brighton-era Moises Caicedo – the lynchpin of Potter’s free-flowing Seagulls side in happier times for the West Ham United boss – and will bring the sort of intensity and mobility missing from a pairing of James Ward-Prowse and Guido Rodriguez or Tomas Soucek.
Dean Ashton backs West Ham United’s pursuit of Monaco ace Soungoutou Magassa
While Tony Gale blamed a ‘lazy’ Guido Rodriguez for giving away the penalty from which Wolves took the lead in Tuesday’s 3-2 Carabao Cup victory, Ward-Prowse was largely anonymous at Molineux. For whatever reason, the former Southampton captain appears to feel as if he will come out in hives if he dares progress the ball through the lines.
So while Magassa is renowned most for his defensive output, West Ham supporters will be delighted to learn that he ranks alongside the likes of Jude Bellingham, Nico Paz and Crystal Palace sensation Adam Wharton when it comes to successful through balls.
As Ashton explains in his post-match debrief on talkSPORT, meanwhile, Magassa cannot come soon enough.
“It has been massively uninspiring, Graham Potter’s tenure,” begins Ashton, who scored 15 Premier League goals for West Ham before being forced to retire due to a knee injury. “But you would think, after the summer, you would see a real difference.
“Ultimately, he has inherited a side built for David Moyes and then Julen Lopetegui, who sits there and defends and counters. [Potter] is not that. He wants to play out from the back, get the team up the pitch. The team and especially the defence look massively exposed [due to] a lack of athleticism, aggression, desire…
“I think Magassa is possibly coming in. They need athleticism and hopefully he can bring part of that, but they need two or three more.”
Ashton worried about Graham Potter as Wolves secure Carabao Cup victory
Ashton will be relieved to learn, then, that West Ham remain ‘all in’ on Southampton’s Mateus Fernandes, as Hammers News’ chief football correspondent Graeme Bailey explains.
Bayer Leverkusen playmaker Exequiel Palacios could arrive too, while there is also interest being shown in Nottingham Forest’s Ibrahim Sangare and Werder Bremen’s Romano Schmid, to name but two.
The key, Ashton explains, is to sign players not merely chosen to fit Potter’s gameplan.
“The recruitment has been so shoddy,” sighs Norwich City’s one-time record signing. “When you change managers and your style of football, you have to be so aligned at board level to make sure it’s spot-on for the manager in place.
“Or, like Crystal Palace, you [must] have a real idea of how a team is going to play, and then [bring in] a manager which suits that team. West Ham have got neither of those, hence why they look so shambolic.
“It was another real blow for Graham Potter, who I think probably was quite pleased with that first-half -[at Wolves]. They created chances, should have scored one or two goals, but ultimately there’s that weak underbelly with the players they have got at the moment.
“Another three goals conceded, and when you look at the goals, they are just really poor defensive mistakes, especially the last one.
“Defensively, they look so, so weak.”
