The success of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool is proof of what can be achieved when taking a punt on recently-relegated players, as West Ham United did when signing Mads Hermansen and Mateus Fernandes.
Xherdan Shaqiri, Gini Wijnaldum and Andy Robertson all moved to Anfield after finding themselves in the Premier League’s bottom three, with Stoke City, Newcastle United and Hull respectively.
The trio would go on to enjoy Champions League success on the red half of Merseyside.
Now, it goes without saying that European glory is not something occupying the minds of many West Ham United supporters right now. One suspects Mads Hermansen and Mateus Fernandes, signed for £18 million and £40 million from Leicester and Southampton, may be content enough with survival, given the way the 2025/26 campaign has started in East London.
Nuno Espirito Santo will give Hermansen a chance to redeem himself after a miserable beginning. Fernandes made an ‘exceptional’ start to life in claret and blue, but he is yet to hit the heights of that 3-0 debut win at Nottingham Forest.
And, speaking on the Dodge Woodall podcast, former Watford captain Troy Deeney feels that West Ham would have benefitted from adding a bit of extra experience and elite-level nous to their ranks.
He uses Victor Lindelof, the former Manchester United stalwart who joined Aston Villa on a free transfer, as the sort of low-risk addition who could have relished a leadership role at a club who lost so many of their most experienced players in a matter of weeks.
Troy Deeney thinks West Ham United should have signed Aston Villa’s Victor Lindelof
Vladimir Coufal, Michail Antonio, Kurt Zouma, Danny Ings and Aaron Cresswell all said their goodbyes over the summer. Lukasz Fabianski made a shock return to West Ham a month ago, but the likes of Rob Green have expressed concerns over a lack of genuine leaders in the squad.
“I always worry about this,” Deeney agrees. “When you buy lads who have been relegated, you get used to losing.
“The goalkeeper from Leicester, he is used to letting goals in. It’s not his fault, but it happens that much where you kind of go, ‘well, that’s what happens’. They spent another £40 million on the midfielder from Southampton.
“He’s just got relegated. So losing games, for him, becomes normal. You go through the spine of the West Ham team, they are used to losing. So, I think you have to start going and taking a risk.”
While hardly a regular in his final years at Old Trafford – and to some a symbol of Man United’s malaise in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era – Lindelof still played 284 games in nearly a decade at arguably Europe’s most high-pressure institution.
While the Sweden international has played only 25 minutes of football in an Aston Villa shirt, head coach Unai Emery highlighted his ‘experience’ when discussing what the 31-year-old would bring to the table.
“If it was me, I would have signed Victor Lindelof from Man United,” says Deeney, who scored 47 Premier League goals for Watford.
“I don’t think he’s great, but he knows what it’s like to play for a big club. He is better than what you’ve got [at West Ham].
“Start looking at those aspects. He’s used to wearing a big shirt, coming under expectations.”
Rob Green fears West Ham lack leaders after the exits of Michail Antonio and co
Former Hammers boss Graham Potter is ‘open’ to taking the Sweden job following the sacking of Jon Dahl Tomasson this week. Potter, then, could find himself coaching Lindelof, potentially at the 2026 World Cup.
The aforementioned Green watched West Ham collapse time and again during the final weeks of the Potter era. A managerial reign summed up, in a sense, by a humiliating 5-1 home defeat by London neighbours Chelsea.
“I look off the pitch as well as on it,” Green said on a night when Hermansen’s weaknesses were brutally exposed between the sticks. “You look at the guys who have walked away from here. Danny Ings Coufal, Fabianski, Antonio…
“Guys who weren’t going to play every week but they were part of a successful team here and they were part of what made the dressing room tick, and you need that.
“Right now, you’re looking around and going, ‘[Apart from] Jarrod Bowen, where are the leaders?
“You’re looking around the game, you’re looking around the dressing room, and it feels like there’s not that drive there. And it’s a horrible thing to say. It’s a horrible thing to say about a dressing room. [But] you just don’t feel like there’s the nastiness in there to turn it around.”
