PELLE BID TO HIT BIG SIX
Isaac still ‘in limbo’ over summer Toon exit
MANUEL PELLEGRINI is out to gatecrash the top six with West Ham next season.
The ambitious Hammers boss is plotting how to end the monopoly of Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United.
Seventh place is the best West Ham can hope for this term but Pellegrini (right), a title winner with City in 2014, reckons they can aim even higher next year.
“It is very difficult because you have six big teams who have a lot of money to bring in good new players, and they already have strong squads,” he said. “But Leicester did it one season. If one club can do it you must try to do it also.
“We need to finish this season. After that we must evaluate what we have done during the whole year, start thinking about new players.
“The next step is to try to bring in the most amount of young players that we can so we continue having a very good young squad, and after that to try to reach the top six in the
Premier League.”
Striker Marko Arnautovic, who missed the midweek defeat at City through illness, will return against Newcastle this evening. ISAAC HAYDEN has admitted he is still “in limbo” as he prepares to quit Newcastle United in the summer to be a “proper dad”.
The Toon midfielder has been one of Rafa Benitez’s top players in recent weeks, anchoring a winning midfield.
But Hayden will still seek a move south to be closer to his fiancee Lauren, and one-year-old daughter Adriana, after they had a problematic pregnancy and a premature birth.
Both are fine now, requiring some hospital check-ups, but are in the south supported by the couple’s families, and Hayden doesn’t want to miss his kid’s childhood.
The 23-year-old pushed to leave last summer, and again in January, but pledged to knuckle down after proposed moves fell through.
He admits Newcastle is not a club he would “willingly give up” and will be part of the side at West Ham today. He said: “Limbo is the word.
“When Adriana is older, I don’t want her to say, ‘Dad paid for everything, but I only saw him once every three weeks’.
“I want her to say, ‘I did this with daddy, we went there together’. Money isn’t everything. It’s about the time you spend with your children, the effort you put in. I want to know her.
“I don’t want to miss her walking for the first time, talking, all those things. I want to be a proper dad.”
Hayden has done a professional job this season, bouncing back after a red card in August against Cardiff. He added: “It’s not like I’ve downed tools. I would never do that. I get where people are coming from. They’re Newcastle through and through and, if a player comes out and says, ‘I want to leave’ for whatever reason, they’re always going to have that angst.
“But it’s never been the case that I don’t like the club, the city or the fans. I do. It’s nothing to do with that.”
Benitez has admitted Jonjo Shelvey is now fifth-choice midfielder after he asked to play for the Under-23s against Fulham.
The Toon boss said: “It was a very positive movement to ask to play. To gain match fitness, you need to play matches.
“But you have Sean Longstaff and Hayden doing well, still you have Ki, still you have Diame – they were ahead of him, and they are not in the team. So, you have five midfielders now for two positions.”