West Ham have been criticised for their transfer business in recent years but it seems clear now that the east London club did brilliantly to sell Andre Ayew for £18m.
How did Andre Ayew do at West Ham?
The Hammers would sign the Ghana international from Swansea City in 2016 for a then club-record deal worth £20.5m, having scored 12 Premier League goals for the Welsh side the season prior.
However, his time at West Ham would prove far less successful, as he managed just 12 goals and five assists in 50 appearances before being sold back to Swansea in January 2018, with the Swans also paying a club-record fee of £18m to bring him back to the Liberty Stadium.
Although the Hammers were forced to take a loss on Ayew, his disappointing displays as a Hammers player suggested that they did well to sell him for as much as they did at the time.
His subsequent performances emphasise that further, as he failed to score in 12 appearances for Swansea in the remainder of the 2017/18 campaign, as they were relegated back to the Championship.
The veteran forward's career has largely been downhill since then, as he would endure a difficult loan spell with Fenerbahce in Turkey, scoring just five goals in 38 appearances, before twice failing to achieve promotion with the Swans, despite hitting a combined 31 league goals.
A spell in Qatar would follow for Ayew, where he would manage an impressive 22 goals in 40 appearances for Al-Sadd, but he failed to produce the goods for his country at the World Cup, averaging a woeful 6.25 rating from WhoScored across his three group stage appearances, which included a woeful penalty against Uruguay in the crucial deciding match.
He would sign for Nottingham Forest on a £45k-per-week deal in January and has done little to impress thus far, failing to score and assist in any of his six appearances, which included another "pathetic" penalty – as dubbed by journalist Ryan Taylor – in the 3-1 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend.
As per Football Transfers, the 33-year-old is now valued at just £2.1m, so it seems clear that the Hammers deserve some credit for getting £18m for him just five years ago, particularly when you consider how he has declined since his London Stadium exit.
