Usually a good World Cup allows a footballer to engineer a move to a new club but it seems one player’s excellent showing has scuppered a potential move to West Ham.

Miroslav Klose had a poor season with Bayern Munich, bagging just three league goal in 25 appearances. At the age of 32, it seemed his time at the club was at an end and, if David Sullivan is to be believed, he was set for a move to East London.

That was before things kicked off in South Africa, where Klose hit four goals as Germany came close to pulling off a massive World Cup betting shock and it is this that seems to have put the mockers on any deal with West Ham.

Sullivan said: “We had a deal in place before the World Cup, after he had a bad season in Germany. However, as a result of what he has done at the World Cup, it’s unlikely to happen.”

It seems that after his good performances, Bayern have decided they want to keep a hold of him, even though he was increasingly thought of as a fringe player at the club.

If true, the story is unfortunate but it’s certainly not disastrous. After all, free transfers are always more expensive than they sound, there’s the signing on fee to be paid and, of course, the wages.

And it’s not certain a player like Klose would have been able to do a job in the Premier League. His four goals in the World Cup came for a side playing excellent counter attacking football, and it’s doubtful this is a system West Ham would be able to employ next season.

That means Klose, at the age of 32, would have to adapt to a new league where time and space are at a premium, not easy to do at that age. He may have dazzled at the World Cup, but it’s far from certain he would have done at West Ham.