Baszczynski hopes to Hammer out deal
Poland international Marcin Baszczynski is determined to realise his dream of playing in the Premiership by winning a contract at West Ham.
The 27-year-old is training with the Hammers in the hope of convincing manager Alan Pardew he is the man to succeed Tomas Repka at right-back.
Repka will say his farewells after Monday night’s visit of Fulham and join Sparta Prague to be reunited with his two young children in the Czech capital.
Despite being assured of his place in the World Cup final squad, Baszczynski would be a relatively cheap option for the Hammers and is available for a fee of around £1m (€1.46m) from Polish champions Wisla Krakow.
Wisla are managed by former Chelsea star Dan Petrescu, who had tried to stop the player leaving for England.
Agent Raymond Sparkes, who brokered the deals for Poles Maciej Zurawski and Artur Boruc to join Celtic last year, said: “It has always been Marcin’s ambition to play in England and he has had to fight even to get this far.
“Dan Petrescu is not happy about it at all. He took over as manager last month and one of the first things he did was to ask the players if they were all committed to the club – or if not to come forward.
“Marcin was the one to put his hand up and tell him he had an agreement with the club president to move to England and that was what he intended to do.
“English football is shown in Poland every Saturday and Sunday and he knows all about West Ham. He has had to push and pull hard for this move and is determined to make it happen.”
Repka sent a message of thanks to the Upton Park faithful and promised he ould return to watch a match alongside them soon.
He said: “I would like to thank the fans. I am sorry to be going back home as I love the supporters but it has been difficult to be away from my children. They go to school in Prague and it has been really hard to be so far away.
“I believe strongly West Ham United will stay in the Premiership because the club belongs there. It has a great tradition and has great supporters.
“Maybe I will come back to London to watch them because West Ham is the club of my heart here in England.”
Pardew is also keen to sign a powerful striker, with Norwich’s Dean Ashton his number one target. The Hammers appeared to be edging closer to the Canaries’ £8m (€11.7m) valuation of the 22-year-old and a deal could be done within the next few days.
But the Hammers boss admitted that every day the end of the transfer window loomed nearer with deals still incomplete the more anxious he would become.
He said: “I’m very conscious of the fact that I lost Jermain Defoe on the last day of a window and we lost out on Benni McCarthy on the last day of the last window. It is not a record I want to keep going because it doesn’t reflect well on me.
“I would rather do some business before the last day. Hopefully we will be able to manoeuvre the market to get the player to take us forward.”
Pardew has not been distracted by bids for any of his own players however, although one prank call certainly had him wondering.
He said: “Managers are looking at us and thinking ‘what’s the point?’ and that is a good message.
“But I did have a mock call from Jose Mourinho this week. Someone rang up and said in a voice like his ‘I want to speak to Alan, can you ring me straight away please?’ so I rung him straight away and it wasn’t him. ‘It was not me,’ he said. ‘It was not me.’ so thanks to that West Ham punter or whoever it was.”
