The three crucial signings West Ham can still make before the deadline - including £43m La Liga star
It includes a player who’s a cost almost £100m in cumulative transfer fees
The 2025/26 season could hardly have started off worse for West Ham and with just over 24 hours to go until the transfer window slams shut, the need for Graham Potter to improve the Hammers’ prospects of Premier League survival is getting desperate.
The loss of Mohammed Kudus - who’s yet to be adequately replaced at the London Stadium - before the season had even started was a hammer blow but after a promising pre-season featuring victories over Everton and Bournemouth, reality has struck the Hammers with a paralysing impact.
What’s arguably even worse than the two defeats from two games by an aggregate of seven goals is the strong start made by all three promoted sides as there looks to be a genuine relegation battle over the next nine months and West Ham appear set to feature heavily in it.
So the need for Potter to bring in reinforcements is intense, but who could they sign?
Conor Gallagher - Atletico Madrid
We know what you’re thinking. Why would Conor Gallagher swap playing in front of over 60,000 people every week in a football stadium for a Champions League club with bonafide superstars and a legendary manager to playing in front of 60,000 people every week in an athletics stadium for club more likely to end up in the Championship than Europe alongside Nayef Aguerd, Mads Hermansen and under the tactical guidance of Graham Potter?
It’s a great question and one that’s got us scratching our heads too, but it’s one that the 25-year-old is apparently pondering with West Ham keen to bring Gallagher back to London and the Premier League. For now at least.
Gallagher would certainly add some bite and energy to West Ham’s midfield, which currently looks hopelessly lightweight and unbalanced featuring James Ward-Prowse and Tomas Soucek.
Both are fine players and cult heroes of the Premier League but they’re both somewhat luxury items, bringing a goal threat from deep while sacrificing some of the more fundamental aspects of midfield play.
Tottenham are among a clutch of London clubs hoping to sign Gallagher and TEAMtalk believe they’re hoping to snag him for £30 million - less than what Atletico Madrid paid Chelsea for his services just last year.
Other reports price the midfielder at closer to €50m (£43.3m) but if he can help shore up West Ham with and without the ball that would be a major problem solved for Potter and could mean the Hammers survive relegation - in which case Gallagher would be worth every penny.
Charlie Cresswell - Toulouse
The theme of players swapping more temperate climes for chilly east London winters continues with Charlie Cresswell. Toulouse aren’t battling in Europe this season but they’re located a couple of hours’ drive away from the ski resorts of the Pyrenees, so the head-scratching continues.
The Preston-born centre-back - son of former North End and Leeds striker Richard Cresswell - starred for England U21s in the summer playing every minute of the Young Lions’ victorious campaign and being named in the team of the tournament.
Having previously found opportunities difficult to come by at Elland Road, Cresswell’s now finding his services in higher demand back home leading Toulouse to slap an £18m price tag on the 23-year-old.
Given Potter’s side have conceded 11 goals in their opening three games of the season, it could be money well spent.
Raheem Sterling - Chelsea
From players who we’re surprised want to move to the London Stadium to one desperate to remain in the capital - this has West Ham written all over it, and not in a good way.
Kalvin Phillips, Jack Wilshire, Joe Hart, Ravel Morrison, Freddie Ljungberg, Lucas Perez, Joe Cole the second time, Samir Nasri and Javier Hernandez - the Hammers’ Premier League history is littered with high-profile flops signed from the big six (or in the case of the last two, signed based off their Premier League form).
That’s not even including other poor signings from smaller domestic rivals like Evan Ferguson or Nikica Jelavic and Sterling really sounds like the next player in that line.
However, according to Footballer Insider’s Peter O’Rouke, West Ham are interested in signing the former England superstar who will go down as one of the best wingers in Premier League history with Graham Potter keen for attacking reinforcements and Sterling keen to leave Chelsea but remain in his boyhood city.
The hope is that he can replace Mohammed Kudus’ attacking output though the Hammers reportedly won’t make a move either permanently or for a loan unless the wage burden they’re taking on decreases.
Sterling’s last two seasons as a Chelsea first-team player were actually very similar to Kudus’ two campaigns with West Ham but the 30-year-old looked a shadow of his former self in 2024/25 on loan at Arsenal, notching a single goal against Bolton in over a thousand minutes on the pitch.