When West Ham signed Callum Wilson on a free transfer last Summer, to most Hammers fans he represented everything that was wrong about the club’s transfer policy.
The majority of Irons supporters saw Wilson as another “Sully special‘ deal, whereby our illustrious ex-Chairman brought in an over-the-hill signing from one of his usual ‘pet’ agents, to save on forking for a ‘proper’ player.
Certainly Wilson had to turn on the charm to convince West Ham fans who were only too aware of his mickey-taking of the club in the past.
No more free signings as stop-gap frontmen and no more thirty-somethings at huge prices: Long term planning has to take precedence
To his credit, he performed admirably – for a 33 year old – and kept his side of the deal. However with modest fitness he was never going to start every game and only proved how much West Ham have missed their traditional Antonio-style frontman.
West Ham have failed to find their Antonio replacement – Fullkrug and Wilson were both too old and too fragile
Wilson is hopefully the last of the line. A new era in the boardroom should mean no more thirty-something ‘stop gap’ strikers who might pop up with five goals in a season. Callum Wilson’s departure is good news – in my humble opinion – as it means the club must go into the transfer market for a genuine goal scorer this summer rather than continue to hope that Wilson can last another year.
Taty Castellanos can be half of West Ham’s front line, but with just one assist and zero goals in 17, Pablo has been widely tipped as being unwanted by Nuno and earmarked for sale. The Hammers need better.
The fact that Wilson has departed also means at some stage in the next month the Argentine forward will surely have a new partner in crime to start the season with – and whoever the Hammers land, the only thing for sure is he won’t be thirty three years old.
Those days are long gone. Finally.
Pablo did not show enough skill, close control nor fight to get to the ball in the box first & remarkably little acceleration 😮. On the other hand he showed how he presses high and what he seems to do really well, is cover ground, play off of other players, bringing others into play, swapping roles with Taty making it hard for defenders, pulling them out of position, a very unselfish player, who’ll probably make assists and become more confident in front of goal.
However, we (C&H, comments) keep saying need young players of potential, before prices go up, who will get better – in other words, trained up and given time to develop and assisted by coaches to do so. He is 22, fresh from Gil Vincente, 1 season in PL, team have dropped down a league and that’s it, get rid for tuppence? Losing more money and discarding a player who has shown some real qualities and where he needs to improve his game.
I’m not pretentious enough to say he WILL come good, but truth is nobody does know, but for a 22 yo from Gil Vincente the one certainty is that he has shown a hell of a lot already.
You’re right that Pablo doesn’t have the numbers, but he seems to work well with Taty in combo, presses pretty well, and tbf his 1 assist was a blinding assist 🙂 . We might stand a better chance of landing a top forward in January when we are flying clear at the top of the league and look guaranteed for promotion!🤞
Enter Ivan Toney.