Evra aiming to kick-start Hammers
LAST SEEN on a football pitch launching a flying assault on one of his own fans before a game had even kicked off, Patrice Evra has been drafted in to help save West Ham’s season.
Without a club since that shocking incident as a Marseille player in Portugal in November and with his best years seemingly behind him, Evra is an unlikely fit for the Hammers given their recruitment policies, but these are desperate times.
Going into the latest transfer window, West Ham co-owner David Sullivan had been on strident form about how the club’s fortunes would be turned around after hiding for most of the 18 months since the club left Upton Park, with the board taking more responsibility for recruitment.
“We have to take a look at the age of the players we’re signing,” he said, in what was effectively his transfer manifesto to the fans.
“We will have to bring in two or three in January. They won’t be old journeymen, they will be young players. They won’t be 32.”
In fairness, former Manchester United and France star Evra is not 32. He is 36. His arrival adds to a month in which Hammers fans had to make do with Oladapo Afolayan from Solihull Moors and Preston’s Jordan Hugill by way of new arrivals.
In return, they lost Andre Ayew and Diafra Sakho and ultimately their head of recruitment Tony Henry after his unsavoury emails regarding African players.
That could all have been considered collateral damage if the teams below them had not started picking up points and abandoning that pre-window promise smacks of a degree of panic.
The only reason Evra is available is because he was sacked by Marseille for an act which led to a European ban but kept him eligible for domestic football.
However, having been robbed for six games of their current first-choice left-back Arthur Masuaku as a result of his own suspension, this
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represented a great opportunity. In a gratifying tale of modern-day football wheeler-dealership, how to be canny and trade in a player who spat at an opponent for one who physically attacked one of his own supporters.
Evra, despite the odds when he launched himself over the barriers at the Europa League game against Vitoria, has landed on his feet. “I’m just happy to be here,” he said. “You don’t realise how lucky you are and just to wake up this morning and know I am going to train with my new team-mates made me smile.
“It happened really fast. The main thing was for me to join West Ham and to help my team-mates to win as many games as we can.”
Yes, the club have abandoned their recruitment policy, but this smacks more of a managerial appointment, not least because David Moyes knows what Evra can still provide having worked with him four years ago at United.
After all, he has won 22 trophies in his career.
Certainly, the enthusiasm bubbles out of Evra. Just so long as it does not fade and die before the end of the season.
I’m so happy to be here and feel very lucky