How much transfer business are West Ham(realistically) likely to do this summer?

The season has been done for a week and since then we’ve been linked to every Championship player with two feet and a pulse. The suggestion is that we need to sell before we buy, which makes sense both financially (we committed to spending ~£45mil on players in January) and logistically.

You can register a maximum of 25 senior players in a Premier League squad. Senior = aged 21 or over. For the 2020/21 season, players born on or after 1st January 1999 don’t need to be registered, so Rice doesn’t count towards that this season, despite being 21.

If you want to pick a full 25, you can have a maximum of 17 non-homegrown players. Homegrown = registered at an English FA-affiliated club for at least 3 seasons before the age of 21.

We currently have 31 players on the books who would need to be registered if we want to use them in the league:

(I’ve limited this to players who played some first team football this season at any level. There are others in the PL2 squad who are over 21, but they’re unlikely to be involved with the first team).

In order to bring one signing in, we’d need to lose 8 of these at a minimum. That’s not too difficult to achieve:

• Realistically, Kemp/Holland/Afolayan/Xande aren’t in the first team picture and can be loaned out or sold on the cheap
• Ajeti’s Celtic move seems to have stalled but he’s almost certainly gone & Hugill will presumably be in a similar position
• Reid’s following the yellow brick road until January at the earliest
• It’s difficult to imagine Roberto ever playing for the club again and, with 3 GKs in front of him, Trott will probably go out on loan for another season

That leaves us something like this:

Cullen’s had a good season with Charlton and Moyes did recall him from a loan when he was here last time, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s seen as a rotational player next year. But if we need space, he’s probably expendable.

Taking all of that into consideration, we’ve theoretically got room for 3 or maybe 4 incomings.

Obviously any big name departures change that. Given the wages they’re on, I think we’re going to struggle to find buyers for Anderson, Yarmolenko etc unless we’re willing to take a huge hit on the transfer fee to get them out of the door.

Some other things to consider:

• If the club plans on reintegrating Winston Reid in Jan (we currently only have 3 CB options and Moyes clearly doesn’t rate Balbuena), we’d need to leave a slot open for him
• Declan Rice would need to be registered from 2021/22 onwards, if he’s still here at that point
• At face value, we’ve got a fairly balanced squad, but Diangana (22), Bowen (23), Cullen (24), and Fredericks (27) are our only homegrown players under the age of 30. Rice (21), Trott (21), and Johnson (20) might help with that if they’re kept around the first team, but if we want to save ourselves problems down the line, this should factor into any signings in this window
• Randolph (33) is the youngest of the 4 senior goalkeepers we have at the club. If Trott isn’t looking like a first team player, we’ll need at least one younger player in that area soon.

TL;DR I’d be surprised if we sign 3 senior players on permanent deals in this window.