David Sullivan says West Ham United are still in the market for new players, while admitting the club’s long-term transfer policy is flawed.

United have so far made four summer acquisitions in the form of Pablo Zabaleta, Joe Hart, Marko Arnautovic and Javier Hernandez.

All four players are aged between 28 and 32, and Sullivan says the club’s transfer policy is very much centred on signing experience.

“We made a decision with Slaven Bilic to buy players proven in the Premier League, who are of an age where they’re being brought not for tomorrow, but for today,” he told Talk Sport.

“Long-term it is not a great strategy, but short-term it is.

“Hopefully we will buy one or two more players, investments in the future, while at the same time doing what’s best for the club.”

At £16 million the capture of Hernandez from Bayer Leverkusen represents a steal in a market which has seen club’s spend eye-watering sums.

At a fee which could rise to £25m, Arnautovic is West Ham’s most expensive signing of this, and for that matter, any other summer.

Sullivan finds the figures being spent hard to stomach and revealed a productive week in which Hart, Arnautovic and Hernandez have all arrived is the product of prolonged work.

“We’re holding our mouths open and we can’t believe what is going on,” he said.

“We’ve been working very long and very hard, eight days ago we had one deal in the bag. We happened to pull three together in a week.

“These deals take forever, and they are getting harder and harder with the demands of the player and the demands of the club.”