Tension over Simone Zaza’s situation at West Ham could be rising after the Juventus flop appeared from the bench at a meaningless stage of the quarter final cup tie against Manchester United.
Zaza – without a goal or decent display to his name since arriving from Juve – managed to slice a shot from relatively close in cross field and into touch before contributing next to nothing.
And with talks continuing on his future -and the club only prepared to keep him until the end of the season if the controversial appearance clause is dropped – eyebrows were raised when the manager brought him on with just 14 minutes left and the game gone.
For whatever happens in talks the Irons have absolutely no intention of keeping Zaza at the end of the season and another game in the clause was ticked off for no apparent reason.
Zaza finds himself in a position where he will only be used in the most extreme circumstances – such as injury and no alternative front man available – until the appearance clause has been dropped.
And there was some head scratching and bemused and anxious glances exchanged as another appearance was knocked off.
Expect some sharp words to perhaps be exchanged.
Worst premiership player i have ever seen. id value the guy around 2 million. Kinda sick how this guy is getting over 4 million for 1 year and cannot do anything and i mean anything. It has got to the point where the fans laugh when he comes on.
Possibly it was just to have a body to replace Payet who we need to step up on Saturday.Maybe it was to use up another appearance to force the board’s hand in the transfer window?
I think the latter is the explanation. Bilic probably did it to end speculation and make ZAZA unusable. What else could Zaza have done in ten minutes ? Oh, and that exchanging the shirt with Ibrahimovic is very revealing. Zaza himself knows he will not be here for the second part of the season. Thus the shirt exchange.
I am sure Bilic must be thrilled with his options up front- 2 injury prone strikers,good for maybe half a dozen games between them, an Italian who isn’t up to it and young lad where the original plan was to let him go out on loan for experience. All of this Zaza bs simply disguises the rubbish summer window we had- too much talking and too little delivery and too little focus on a proven striker. Another point in relation to Zaza and any of our strikers is how many chances have they missed?
It does seem really odd that we keep playing him knowing his contract situation isn’t resolved, we have Martinez in the U23’s that scores pretty much every game and although there is a gulf of difference between that and PL level it IMHO is time he at least gets put on the bench when bar Sakho and Fletcher none of the forwards look threatening.
Yes, doesn’t make much sense does it!
As I understand it, West Ham have no intention of keeping Zaza but want Juventus to drop the appearance clause that forces West Ham to buy him after 14 appearances.
So West Ham just want him to make up the numbers, or to put it another way get some value for the £5 million loan fee – but the fact is the guy is an embarrassment and any confidence he might have had has been shot – put us all out of our misery and send him back to Italy asap!