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Remember that golden summer of strikers? Alexander Isak, the former hottest property in football. Get well soon, Alex. That all boiled down to a crazy last day of deal sheets, add-ons, release clauses, buy-backs, loans with options to buy, medicals and AI-generated InstaChat memes. Such halcyon days are unlikely to be repeated in this bleak midwinter. January, barring Manchester City snaffling Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guéhi, has been quiet. On Tuesday, the window will almost certainly creak shut rather than slam. At many Premier League clubs, a window has barely been open at all, making for a stagnant market.
That makes for a few players in a Yosser Hughes, gissa club situation, those you see on a squad list and wonder what happened. James Ward-Prowse and Nuno Espírito Santo is one of those relationships where the manager is just not that into him. Last season, Ward-Prowse’s loan at Nottingham Forest was terminated after nine games in five months, and then, when Nuno replaced Graham Potter, he again became midfielder non grata, only to appear on the Hammers bench on Saturday. “James is here and if he’s required, he will help us,” cooed Nuno. Are Ward-Prowse’s days of training away from the first-team squad at an end? Yes, actually. He has now joined Burnley on loan. Perhaps at Turf Moor, Ward-Prowse can equal David Beckham’s Premier League free-kick record, though it was way back in February 2023 he last scored one.
