Analysis: Moysie’s surprising 25 year striker record

Hugh5outhon1895

2 years ago

Categories: News, Whispers

Hammers fans will remember former Moyes Everton striker Jelavic

David Moyes’ hunt for a striker is barely backed by his activity in that area of the transfer window.

For a look at the stats shows that the Scot has signed a mere SIX centre forwards of over £5 million during his time in the game at a collective cost of just over £50 million .

That’s an extraordinary scenario for a manager who has been in the game for 25 years although to be fair he had the luxury of working with the likes of Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie at Manchester United.

But it’s still surprising our manager doesn’t have a huge body of work signing top table strikers and we can only hope he gets it spot on when signing Mikey Antonio’s back up or long term replacement.

As our need for a new striker becomes more obvious by the day, Irons fans may be concerned to learn of his activity with front men over his career.

The Irons do have the cash to go big and the hope is Moysie and the club can deliver on a top forward to help pick up some of the load on Mikey.

A dive by Claret&H into Moyes’ previous buys has shown the surprising lack of successful striker purchases.

Here they are:

Former Middlesbrough striker, Yakubu, is his record striker outlay, after he paid £14m to take the player to Goodison Park in 2007. The former Nigerian international did pretty well, scoring 45 goals in 107 appearances for Everton.

Moyes paid £10m for James Beattie from Southampton and the same again to take Andy Johnson from Crystal Palace way back in 2006.

And the striker shortfall includes £6m on Nikica Jelavic from Rangers (West Ham fans won’t need reminding how he fared when he joined us).

At Real Sociedad he signed a lad called Jonathas – a guy now playing his football in India
And to top off the low striker spend, the £9m we paid for Jordan Hugill in 2018 from one of Moysie’s former clubs at Preston North End.