David Moyes provides update on search for Sebastien Haller replacement

David Moyes has admitted that West Ham United are 'not really' in a position to sign a replacement for Sebastien Haller in the January transfer window, after the Frenchman left east London to join Ajax earlier in the month.

The 26-year-old signed for the Hammers in the summer of 2019 for a fee rising to £45m, but he failed to consistently reach the levels expected of him over the past 18 months, and the club decided to cash in while they still could.

Haller's exit has handed Moyes a further £20m to spend on attacking reinforcements in the January transfer window, but the West Ham coach has admitted that the club is 'not really' primed to recruit another striker.

"One thing you need to do as a manager, you need to make sure that you have spaces to bring people in," Moyes explained.

"If you don't have spaces then all you do is gather players and it becomes more difficult.

"So, part of the job is to create room for it, we have now created room that we can bring players in. Are we ready for that? No, not really. But we will go along and we'll do what we can and we will try and bring in what we think are the right players."

Speaking about Haller's departure, Moyes confessed that the Hammers 'didn't expect' such a bid to arrive, but felt that selling the forward was 'the right thing to do'.

"The Seb Haller situation was simply that we got an offer, we didn't expect it," said Moyes.

"We weren’t planning to lose Seb this window. He’s done great for us, he's won a few games recently with his goals, so we wish him well.

"I think it's a really good move for him to go to Ajax and it was something which maybe if we didn't take this offer now maybe we would not have got it at a later stage, so we just felt it was the right thing to do. But it certainly wasn't planned."

West Ham have been linked with a return for ex-striker Marko Arnautovic and Bournemouth star Josh King, and although Moyes' comments have dampened those rumours for now, there is plenty of time left to rectify the situation.