A day after appointing Slaven Bilic as their new manager, West Ham is continuing to piece together a new squad post-Sam Allarydce.
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On Wednesday the Hammers signed Pedro Obiang, 23, from Serie A side Sampdoria for an undisclosed fee -- thought to be around $7 million -- as the Spanish U-21 international signed a four-year contract to join the east Londoners.
Obiang played 34 times for Sampdoria during the 2014-15 season, scoring three times, and is described as a “box-to-box” midfielder by West Ham and he’s been speaking to West Ham’s official website after jetting into London to sign the contract.
Safe to say he’s pretty excited about joining the Irons.
“I’m very happy to have signed,” Obiang said. “We have been talking about this for a long time and now I’ve finally got the chance to come here. I went on holiday after the season had finished and I was looking forward to receiving that call to tell me where and when to sign for this Club! I’m very excited to play in the Premier League. It’s a style of football that will help me to progress as a player and as a person, so it will be very good.”
With Alex Song returning to Barcelona following his loan deal to the Hammers last season, Bilic certainly needed a new player capable of taking the game by the scruff of the neck in midfield. Obiang fits the bill as West Ham’s new Croatian boss loves his teams to press high and snap into tackles whenever possible. With Kevin Nolan, Mark Noble and Cheikhou Kouyate also central midfield options, West Ham will be in good shape in that area of the field ahead of the new season.
The Hammers begin their 2015-16 season on July 2, that is just over three weeks from now, as they qualified for the Europa League via the Fair Play rankings but that means they enter the competition in the first qualifying round. Given that fact, it’s likely we will see plenty more new arrivals in the coming days as Bilic’s era has begun at West Ham.
