Freddie Ljungberg and Kieron Dyer cost West Ham £1m a game

Freddie Ljungberg and Kieron Dyer cost West Ham £1m a game

• Dyer and Ljungberg cost club £34m for 32 games
• Dean Ashton left West Ham with £6m bill

Freddie Ljungberg proved to be an expensive signing for West Ham Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images

Freddie Ljungberg and Kieron Dyer will have cost West Ham effectively £1m a match, it was revealed in the club's latest accounts. Ljungberg, who has left Upton Park, and Dyer will have cost £34m over the terms of their contracts, having started a combined total of only 32 matches for West Ham since the summer of 2007.

The club's ill-judged spending over recent seasons also included their decision to give Dean Ashton a new contract, which left them liable for a £5.81m payment when he was forced to retire because of injury.

For two years under the ill-fated Icelandic regime, West Ham's wages totalled around 80% of their annual turnover, nearly 20% higher than the Barclays Premier League average. Nick Igoe, the club's finance director, said West Ham's performance on the pitch was poor following their huge outlay.

"It is a truism to observe that a club's playing success (and almost certainly long term financial success) is largely dependent on how wisely it invests its available resources," Igoe wrote in the accounts.

"It has to be concluded that many of the group's investment decisions in the last two to three seasons have been ill-judged.

"Two players who signed in the summer 2007 transfer window, one of whom has since left the club, have started a combined total of 32 games and will have cost the group £34m over the term of their contracts.

"No football club can sustain this level of expenditure on underperforming members of its squad."