Hammers boss Harry Redknapp has urged the club to dig deep into its pockets and allow him to spend the bulk of the £18m transfer kitty generated by the sale of Rio Ferdinand to Leeds United on new players.
Harry said earlier:"This is a very important time for the club and the players, and the fans are waiting to see what is going to happen. They want to see when the club are going to give me most of the money from the Rio deal so I can strengthen the squad.
"If they only give me a small percentage of the money then there will be a problem because the supporters won't be very happy - and nor will the players. At the moment I really don’t know how much money I am going to be given.
“The chairman says that the money to build the new stands is already in place and now we are going to see if that is the case.”
But despite the opportunity for Redknapp to delve into the transfer market with substantial funds at his disposal for the first time in his career, he still had time to bemoan the loss of the Ferdinand.
"It's a massive blow to me," he said in his column for This Is London. "David O'Leary is a very lucky man. He can pick someone he would like in his team and the club go out and try and take him away from you.
"It makes it a very uneven playing field. We are still supposed to compete, despite everything.
"Gordon Strachan had to sell his best player, Robbie Keane, for £13 million last season, but is anyone concerned about that? Not a chance.
"John Gregory said on TV they should call me Sir Harry if the Rio deal came off, and Craig Brown reckoned it was the deal of the century when I met him on Wednesday night.
"That's all very well, but I'm not going to get enough money to replace him. How do you replace someone like Rio?"
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