With all the rumours yesterday regarding West Ham transfer targets and PSR rules, it’s worth remembering that we are not the only Premier League club looking for a striker. Other clubs face similar issues.
The lack of talent in the striker market is glaringly obvious, and if West Ham want a goalscorer, they simply need to pay up and convince any player that a project is well underway at the 18th richest club in the world, which boasts the second-highest average attendances in the league, just behind Manchester United!
For Tim Steidten and his scouting team, who are yet to power up the private jet, here’s a gentle reminder of who is out there!
Being realistic, I would be shocked if we managed to pull off any of the transfers below, but we can all dream, right?
Jonathan David – Age 24, Lille. Contract expires this summer, so one of the cheaper options. 17 goals in 22 appearances this season. Valued at £21m. His French club are desperate to sell in the current transfer window before he becomes a free agent, yet the player may run down his contract and weigh up his options in the summer.
Liam Delap – Age 21, Ipswich Town. 8 goals in 20 appearances. We’ve already covered this player in previous articles. A more realistic target at the end of the season rather than now.
Jhon Duran – Age 21, Aston Villa. 12 goals in 26 appearances. Needs no introduction to Hammers fans!
Victor Gyökeres – Age 26, Sporting Lisbon. 17 appearances, 21 goals. £83.1m release clause. Should have and could have bought him from Coventry City – the price was £18m, but we didn’t!
Alexander Isak – Age 25, Newcastle United. 22 appearances, 15 goals. Will command a big transfer fee; they want £150m!
Omar Marmoush – Age 25, Eintracht Frankfurt. 25 appearances, 19 goals. To be fair to Steidten, the Egyptian international was on his target list. Now rated at £67.3m and likely to join Manchester City within days.
Victor Osimhen – Age 25, Napoli (on loan at Galatasaray). 13 appearances, 10 goals. What’s not to like about this player? The Turkish team can’t afford the transfer fee – can West Ham? The answer is no. The Nigerian international was set to earn £33.7m per season for Al-Ahli, yet the Saudi club fell £4m short on the transfer fee of £71.6m. He even turned down Chelsea due to disagreements over personal terms. There is, however, a break in his loan deal, and he only has 18 months left on his Napoli contract, with the club keen to command a hefty fee.
Benjamin Sesko – Age 21, RB Leipzig. 24 appearances, 12 goals. Standing 6ft 5 inches tall, the Slovenian international is a handful. On a new long-term contract at his parent club. West Ham were watching him back in early 2023, when he was playing for Leipzig’s sister club Salzburg in the Austrian League.
Dusan Vlahovic – Age 24, Juventus. 23 appearances, 12 goals. The Serbian international saw West Ham and Aston Villa make enquiries in July 2023, only to be quoted £69m for a player who was struggling for goals and confidence after his move from Fiorentina. That has all changed now, with Arsenal failing in a loan bid. Juventus want an outright transfer or a loan with an obligation.
Villa have bought their new striker, Donyell Malen_£21.5m, Duran will soon be on his bike £50m/£60m/£70m? but not £40m!!!
Emery just can’t wait to get rid of Mr Hassle.
No mention of more likely strikers just ones that are made of dreams.
Ferguson/Wahi/Andre Silva/Awasiti and new name Daniel Cummins.
Just 2 weeks to ago_Its make up your mind time.
In addition also c/bk (who cover l/bk) and midfielder.
Would be a dream but none of those would come to a team not playing in Europe unfortunately.
You’ve forgot Michy Batshuayi who wasn’t any good when he was younger. Sullivan has been trying to sign him for 10 years and the fact a transfer to us is being reported in other news sources is all the evidence needed to see Sullivan is meddling again. How many strikers has he dropped on our managers? 55!
Not sure what the point of this article is – Alexander Isak with a release clause of £150 million, Victor Osimhen £71.6 million, Jhon Duran £71 million, Omar Marmoush £67.3 million and likely to join Man City in next few days? With our very limited budget and FFP regulations the only 2 which were realistic were Duran and Gyokeres but we all know what happened there! Unlikely most of them would consider joining us with no European football or offer and zero chance of us paying these ridiculous transfer fees anyway. Only one who could be realistic is Liam Delap.
We are not going to get a striker. Even if we had not scored a goal in 40 matches, Sullivan being the tight p**** he is, wouldn’t stump up the cash for anyone decent in a January window. He just won’t. For the first time ‘Harry’ Redknap can claim bare bones. We are going to have to make do!
it will be the guy from Forest or Middlesborough all the other rubbish is to make the little man seem big…seen it to many times and it will never change.
TBH compared with using Ings I’d take either of them, sadly
Duran is not for sale at any price, says Aston Villa this morning.
David at Lille, could be a possible deal this window.
Delap might soon be picked up by Arsenal, Chelsea or Man United.
……….Forget the others on this pointless list.
Ferguson of Brighton looks a brilliant prospect and two years’ younger than Delap…..but is he fit?
To anyone in the know… is there a striker prospect lurking in the Academy we can try out for the rest of the season? If they’re good enough they’re old enough etc. As we all know getting a good signing in January is always difficult.
Wasted 3 mins reading this. Change the title to “A list of strikers who would never consider joining West Ham” so nobody else has to please.
Quite a list of names that any team would love but unfortunately we have missed the bus on a few of these players and the likely hood being that we won’t be seeing any of them in claret and blue,best we can hope for is that Steiden actually lives up to his nickname and finds us someone cheap and highly effective