From the Boardroom - David Sullivan

The Joint-Chairman on the new Stadium, UEFA Europa League, injuries and transfers...

It is an extremely busy time for everyone at West Ham United and I can assure you that we are all working as hard as possible to ensure a successful future for our Football Club.

We are now less than a week away from our historic first-ever home match at our new Stadium on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Hundreds of people have been putting in long days and nights to ensure the Stadium is ready for our opening fixture against NK Domzale in the UEFA Europa League, working 24-hours-a-day.

There has been so much going on at the Stadium these past few weeks, with the major work being to move the relocatable seating into place so that our Season Ticket Holders can sit in their regular Premier League seats for next Thursday’s game.

This has been a major engineering project, but one we are confident will be completed to everyone’s satisfaction.

My Vice-Chairman Karren Brady welcomed VIP guests to the Stadium earlier this week, including the family and friends of the late, great Bobby Moore, former players and jounalists.

They were given a tour of Club London and also able to view the inside of the Stadium bowl from the Upper Tier of the East Stand. The feedback I have received has been overwhelmingly positive, with some being close to tears when they saw the scale of our new home.

Of course, if we are going to continue to grow our already enormous fanbase, we need to play entertaining, winning football.
On Thursday, we lost 2-1 to Domzale in our UEFA Europa League third qualifying round first leg tie in Slovenia, which we all admit was not good enough.

I was certainly scratching my head to explain why we couldn't hit our usual high levels of performance, and I am sure Slaven and his coaching staff were too. We know we have to do better next week – and we will.

Tickets for the second leg are selling well, with Season Ticket Holders and Claret Members taking us close to a sell out, so I would urge you all to purchase your seat as soon as possible to ensure you do not miss out on this unique occasion.

Any remaining tickets will go on General Sale on Saturday morning and are expected to go quickly.
Thursday’s performance and the injuries suffered by Aaron Cresswell, Manuel Lanzini and Gokhan Tore have only increased our eagerness to get deals done. There has been some good news with Manu, who we hope will only miss three Premier League fixtures.

We are very close to bringing in a very promising striker who has scored goals regularly in his career in competitive leagues. He will need time to settle, like every new player, but we are confident he will add a lot to the squad.

We are also talking to another Premier League club about a top-class international forward, but the discussions over financial terms still have some way to go.

With Aaron unfortunately out for a few weeks, we have lodged bids in for a left-back, one of which was an £8m bid which was turned down on Thursday. We will now decide whether or not we increase that bid.

Watch this space.