I can’t help but feel a move like this was, not so much ‘necessitated’ by the injury to Ryan Fredericks, but certainly helped to speed it up a little bit.
Although what that is going to cause the situation to be once Fredericks does recover from injury, we’ll just have to wait and see.
According to a report from The Guardian, West Ham United are interested in bringing in Slavia Prague right-back Vladimir Coufal this window in order to add some strength in depth with only 20-year-old Ben Johnson now available to fill that spot. The 28-year-old defender is a former teammate of Hammers midfielder Tomas Soucek, so that might be used as a bit of a sweetener in order to make the deal happen.
And whilst he might add that depth, there is a slight danger that we could be adding too much depth and really pushing the balance between ‘competition for places’ and having ‘too many men to choose from’.
Fredericks is someone who has a bit of a history when it comes to getting injured, so it’s nice to have some cover for him for when those days come, or perhaps you want to switch them around and make Coufal first choice.
Either way, this move would prove a bit of a bad one for the aforementioned Johnson who would find his path to the first team pretty much blocked, and it could force the club to send him out on loan, which in my mind wouldn’t be a bad thing. If he were to get some regular minutes in say the Championship or League One, then we’d be able to get the benefit of that further down the line.
Is Ben Johnson good enough for West Ham?
Yes
No
But that’s something that the cub will need to weigh up when they consider taking a step further for Coufal, is just what it would do to those further down the food chain at the club.
What about you? What do you make of this news about Coufal? And what do you think the club should do with Johnson as a result?
