At the time, it was widely reported that West Ham United’s bid for Taylor Harwood-Bellis was £12 million — an offer swiftly rejected by Southampton.

What has now emerged, as part of yesterday’s wave of “nearly signed” revelations, is that West Ham did go back in with a second bid.

That follow-up offer was a significant increase — £18 million — just £2 million short of Southampton’s £20 million valuation.

Which rather begs the obvious question: why not just pay the extra £2m?

Instead, the deal was deemed too rich for the Hammers’ negotiators, and on deadline day attention shifted to a loan move for Axel Disasi from Chelsea.

Near Misses Don’t Equal Progress

Quite why there has been such a flood of “what might have been” stories in the last couple of days is anyone’s guess. It certainly doesn’t make West Ham look better. And it offers fans absolutely no comfort to learn that the club were ALMOST doing the right thing.

If anything, it just reinforces a growing concern: West Ham repeatedly get close — but fail — when it comes to landing players we genuinely want. Don’t get me wrong, personally I had to desire to...