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West Ham should avoid signing Antonio Candreva

By Scott Johnson

ROME, ITALY - MAY 10: Antonio Candreva (R) and teammate Felipe Anderson of SS Lazio celebrate after scoring the opening goal during the Serie A match between SS Lazio and FC Internazionale Milano at Stadio Olimpico on May 10, 2015 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Paolo Bruno/Getty Images)
ROME, ITALY - MAY 10: Antonio Candreva (R) and teammate Felipe Anderson of SS Lazio celebrate after scoring the opening goal during the Serie A match between SS Lazio and FC Internazionale Milano at Stadio Olimpico on May 10, 2015 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Paolo Bruno/Getty Images) /
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West Ham, according to the Daily Mirror, are interested in Inter Milan’s Antonio Candreva. Given his age and our recruitment policy, we should avoid this move.

If you’d told be 4 or 5 years ago that this was a legitimate move, I would have bitten your hand off. Antonio Candreva has been a regular goalscorer in Serie A in the past and his time at Lazio with Anderson on the opposite wing saw them both scoring regularly. So why don’t I want West Ham to buy him?

Well I know that the Hammers currently have a few injury issues on the right wing/attacking midfield area, but Candreva would be a short term solution and one that could cause unbalance in the squad going forward. Adding to that, he will be 32 before the end of the season, and that’s not the direction we should be heading.

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I’m all for signings that will give us more options and quality in attack, but although Candreva was was top quality he is now struggling to nail down a place at Inter. With Snodgrass filling in dutifully and youth players pushing to make a break into the first team these kind of signings are not necessary. The Future of the club is important as well as this season.

Also whilst there are injuries now both Lanzini and Yarmolenko are expected to be back before the end of the season. If we suddenly have a queue of first team players waiting to get gametime there is going to be a lot of unrest in the squad. We added Nasri for free as a short term cover option and quite simply he’s better than Candreva. If we add more experience without letting some go it’s not going to go well.

So if we add this to the list of transfers I would have made years ago that’s fine by me. We’re living in 2019 and need to think about the future years. I’m not sure of the veracity of the rumour, it may simply be that he used to play with Felipe Anderson, but I hope we don’t go through with it. It would certainly striker me as very short sighted.

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