Sebastien Haller scored a brace for Ajax yesterday to fire them through to the semi finals of the Dutch Cup less than 24 hours after the Hammers exit from the FA Cup without a fit striker.
The former Hammers scored twice to help Ajax secure a 2-1 victory over PSV Eindhoven in a Cup tie on Wednesday night.
The 26-year-old has been delivering some good performances since his move in January for £20.2m
The forward bagged an assist on his debut for Ajax and then opened his goals coring account against Twente and he has now taken his tally to four goals across all competitions.
West Ham were without Michail Antonio on Tuesday night at Old Trafford with both fatigue and a tight hamstring blamed while make shift backup forward option Andriy Yarmolenko went off injured with knee ligament issues.
While Mipo Odubeko bravely stepped into the breach it became obvious that is a step too far for the youngster at the moment. Haller’s brace will rub salt into the wounds of West Ham supporters’ who thought this could be the year to go all the way.
He’s playing in the Dutch league, why would he be rubbing salt in the wound? The truth is he couldn’t handle the Premiership, so he will always be in the weaker leagues. He doesn’t cut it. Our only folly is we didn’t spend his fee on another striker and,as expected, Antonio is injured which leaves us with a youngster, who seemed to be scared to death when he came on at Manchester. I’m sure he has potential but not yet.
Kezman, Depay, Tadic, van de Beek, etc.
It’s league one.
He clearly didn’t like a physical challenge, not expelling large amounts of effort.
Forget him. Rather have Shane Long or Troy Deeney. Would be more effective.
Absolutely. Couldn’t pass muster of EPL.
Let’s see where we are this time next season, in terms of attacking options. Only then will we be able to judge whether Moyes’ seemingly-sensible (to me, anyway) of buying the right striker(s) at the right time, rather than any old square peg in January 2021 which then limits his options in the longer and less difficult transfer windows to come, has paid off. This is the first time in the recent history of our Club that a West Ham manager has been seen to be such a careful steward of the money that we, the fans, generate. Hopefully, we’ll be able to applaud him for that long after Seb Haller – who wasn’t able to perform at the levels required in top flight English football, let’s not forget – has hung up his boots.
It’s way too soon for there to be any danger of salt being poured into any wounds, in my view.
Some of the most sensible thinking I have come across in these forums ljd1980! Please keep going ……..
Couldn’t care less .much easier league.
Pleased for Haller. No salt in the wound here. Let’s just hope the JL + SN combo is enough to combat MA injuries. While we’re at it, see if we can dig under the stands and find Bowen’s confidence? That should make for a strong finish to the season. Europe or not, you have to admit the team hasn’t played this well since…ummm… anyway, next transfer window should give some opportunity to bring in some decent forwards. Maybe give us a shot at Europe then, what’s the rush?
He scored a brace for us in the cup against a lower league team and then played crap after that.