West Ham United manager Olli Harder says that he will be looking to sign ‘robust’ players for the club in the summer.
The New Zealander has had to work with a wafer-thin group of players since his arrival in East London in December with a catalogue of injuries not helping The Hammers’ cause.
Harder could name just four players on the bench for this afternoon’s Vitality Women’s FA Cup fifth round tie at Manchester City. Despite being low on numbers, The Hammers boss actually had one player more available to him than he had for the league meeting against the same opponents last weekend. West Ham United lost the tie 5-1, although they were far from disgraced at The Academy Stadium.
With West Ham United’s season now over, Harder discussed recruitment in his post-match press conference. He said that signing healthy players in the summer should take priority over having a much higher number of players in his squad next season.
When discussing potential summer signings, Harder said “I don’t really have a number in mind, it is about making sure that we have robust players, we are able to have players who are able to play a 22-game season.
“We’ve got too many players on the physio table for things which are out of our control unfortunately when it comes to training and load and so on so for me, it is about whether I have enough robust players to go out and play the style of football that we want to play.”
When discussing his side’s performance against Manchester City, Harder again commented on the small squad size whilst highlighting the fact that the job at The Chigwell Construction Stadium is still very much a work-in-progress.
“It was a difficult match, it always is up here, against a quality team,” said The Hammers boss. “It is difficult when you have a very, very thin bench.
“The girls gave a very good account of themselves, they worked hard. We are developing a DNA here at West Ham and it is slowly coming.
“Obviously, for us now it is about moving forward to next season.”
A summer of transfer market activity is now likely at West Ham United with Australian international midfielder Tameka Yallop having already agreed terms to join the club ahead of next season.
About The Author
