The Jhon Duran ‘crossed Hammers’ on instagram must go down as one of the biggest faux pas by a player of the social media era: Duran, still an Aston Villa player, showed his crossed-Hammers support for the Irons who then walked away from signing him, leaving thousand s of irate Aston Villa fans to rant at their player’s gross disrespect of his existing employer.
Fast forward one year and another West Ham striker target appears to have swerved a similar fate with social media vilification avoided: Striker Troy Parrott was taking part in a tik-tock inspired series of ‘this or that’ Questions and Answers involving two answers on dart boards, the striker having to throw the arrow in to his preferred choice.
AZ Alkmaar’s in-demand frontman avoided the Duran pratfall when asked – amongst other questions – ‘London or Alkmaar’ in a thinly veiled attempt to establish the Irish forward’s intent come January.
Fortunately the quick thinking 23 year old – without a moment’s hesitation – landed his dart firmly in the ‘Alkmaar’ dartboard thus saving the forward the fallout from tens of thousands of angry Dutch fans. For now, at least.
Quite what his stance will be come January isn’t clear: The young striker has already batted his eyelids at the Hammers by claiming his biggest priority for the future would be joining a club ‘willing to trust its young players’. Somebody introduce him to Freddie Potts, quick.
Whatever his goal scoring prowess, Parrott has already proved he’s pretty deft at the politics of football.