10 Players You Didn't Know West Ham Almost Signed

3. Ruud Van Nistelrooy

It would appear that January 2010 was quite a busy window for West Ham. In a desperate bid to salvage their Premier League status, their lavish new owners were ready to spend their way out of trouble. However, while they offered contracts to the likes of Benni McCarthy and Eidur Gudjohnsen, they saved what would have been their greatest coup for the last week of the window, as they turned their attention to 150-goal former Manchester United legend Ruud van Nistelrooy.

The club were lambasted with offering the newly-released Galactico an eye-watering £100,000 p/wk salary, toying with their financial status, as they languished in the relegation zone.

''Let me just state on the record that there is a big difference when you are paying a player £100,000 for four months to paying someone £50,000 for a four-year contract. For a super player like that, I felt, and David Sullivan felt, it was good business.€™€™ €“ David Gold, 2010.

In the end, there was to be no Premier League return for the Dutch goal-poacher, snubbing both Spurs and West Ham, in favour of a move to Hamburg. For Sullivan and Gold, they were left to rely on the apparently explosive knees of Demba Ba and an ageing Robbie Keane, as the Londoners meekly sank through the trapdoor into the abyss of the Championship.