It will be clear come Saturday just how much trouble West Ham are in as far as their front man situation is concerned. Michail Antonio will have flown 7,500 kilometres this week after his 83 minutes for Jamaica in their Concacaf draw against Honduras. When was the last time Antonio played 83 minutes? Who can say – but I’d guess he won’t be full of beans and ready to run for a full game for West Ham come lunch time Saturday.
Niclas Fullkrug will either be on the bench – in which case all of the speculation regarding the seriousness of his achilles injury falls away – or he won’t be in the squad. In which case the Hammers’ striker woes are a lot worse than admitted and the need to get out into the January transfer market will become that much more pressing. Remember, Ings and Antonio leave anyway when their contracts expire in June, which will leave us with – just Niclas Fullkrug who by then will be 32.
So it’s pretty urgent to bring in a younger addition in January – which is why there are so many rumours and reports of scouting and interest in new recruits to West Ham’s front line.
The latest report from footballfancast.com suggests Greek striker Vangelis Pavlidis – he who scored twice at Wembley – is on the shopping list as a potential winter recruit. Quoting former Hammers head of recruitment Mick Brown, the report suggests: ‘West Ham could move for Pavlidis having been interested previously: “After that performance [at Wembley], clubs will certainly be interested.”
Brown continued:” I know clubs have been having close looks since before he moved to Benfica. I’m surprised none of them made a move when he left AZ in the summer. From what I know the likes of West Ham are looking for a striker, and have looked at him before.”
Trouble is, Pavlidis only moved from AZ Alkmaar to Benfica in the summer, so he has a five-year contract and would be expensive to pry away from the Portugese club – plus-would he want to leave anyway?
Never going to happen. Turn him down at £15 million only to come back a few months later and cough up 2/3 times as much? If paying £23 million for Fullkrug wasn’t embarrassing enough, this would be the cherry on the cake!!!
Not sure why we haven’t been linked with David Fofana at Chelsea. He scored 2 against us whilst on loan at Burnley last season and generally looked a real handful (if a little rough around the edges). But at 21 he is a similar age to Duran and available for around a quarter of the price
Pavlidis is an interesting alternative -I suggested his name in a previous comment- but Delap’s performance against West Ham caught everyone’s attention and makes him an interesting option as well.
Liam delap from Ipswich town would be my pick he’s young highly rated and scores goals in the premier league? We would have to pay £30m for him but he could be the next Jon Duran!