Trying to be objective about a West Ham striker ‘incoming’ after so many pursuits, failed signings and the odd success story is near impossible for anyone who, like me has followed the club for half a century. I wear the Jordan Hugill, Mido and Benni McCarthy mental scars and still shake my head over what should have been with (main pic) Gianluca Scamacca. So when trying to weigh up the potential of Brian Brobbey, latest young Hammers’ prospect still odds-on favourite (at least he was when I wrote this very late on Saturday night!) to join the club if they can strike a deal with Ajax, objective opinion is crucial.
Cue those nice people at transfermarket.com who produced an article yesterday :”Tottenham, West Ham and Everton want him – but is Brian Brobbey good enough for the PL?” Which made for seriously interesting reading. The report has a note of caution:
“Right now, he has trouble with finding the net in the Eredivisie, which is considered to be a striker’s heaven. Attackers that can’t seem to score goals, can become top scorers in the Dutch league, so if you can’t score here as a striker, you will have a hard time in the Premier League”
“But on the other hand, this period might just be a long slump and with his physical abilities, he could be an ideal signing for a Premier League club.” Brobbey isn’t a very technical striker, but makes up for that by being very strong physically. I’m still not sure what his best role is: being a target man or being the type of striker that will hold the ball and wait for teammates to arrive.”
Sounds like an unfinished article then, a diamond in the rough in need of polishing. At least he has youth on his side, and a little like Michail Antonio when he first landed from Nottingham Forest, just a bundle of muscle and raw power. The benefit of coming to West Ham – and a chance to grow under the eye of one of the Premier League’s top coaches – is certainly a lure which Potter’s appointment in January has created.
Whether he will be good enough to score the goals needed for a new team in England remains to be seen, but there’s little doubt that what he’s achieved to date has earned him plenty of attention from some of the Premier League’s biggest sides.” Let us hope at West Ham, we get the chance to watch his success unfold.
Didn’t read the article MT so not sure if it shares how the new coach at Ajax has used or misused him. Equally he may not be good enough, only one way to find out. Will probably be another club that gets to answer that question as we have not made a deal and others like Forest or Everton are more likely too.
Brian Brobbey is not responsible for picking Ajax over PL in his current job. Maybe if he had chosen Villa as his preferred destination a couple of years ago, then he would be keeping Duran and Watkins on the bench or playing as his support.
From the description of his style of play, just imagine the duo we could have with him and Niclas Fullkrug. Not to mention the recipients of the mayhem caused – Bowen, Kudus and Paqueta.
What a watch that could be. COYI
As another string to Potters bow can you imagine J.W.P ‘S pinpoint Longball accuracy to Brobbey’s head or feet . The panic it could cause most teams!
“one of the Premier Leagues top coaches”?
The thing is that Steidten recommended Gyokeres but Moyes didn’t fancy him. He then recommended Duran but Sullivan didn’t want to pay the bit extra.
You need to move on things like that when they come up, not employ a bloke for his insight then not listen to him, tell him to go and get someone else cheaper instead.
We shouldn’t have needed to look at Fullkrug let alone Brobbey. If you don’t pick up the top quality when they’re right in front of your eyes making crossed hammers signs then you end up with the ageing, the injury prone and the less than fully convincing.
We make our own problems with the appalling decisions that get taken.
Spot on John! 👍
ok so you say Brobbey is not good enough etc etc yet a clapped out injury prone silva is the perfect fit? well he can always keep Ings company in the retirement home We are opening.
And if said strikers are not good enough where on earth do you find one who bangs in 20 goals a season and is injury free and under 30? and oh yeah must cost no more than £20million and accept wages of around £60 grand with bonuses.
Ivan Toney offered to us for £10million but of course he was in Div one then and not considered good enough by Sullivan who now regrets that decision….The man has been poison since he walked into our club and his only aim was to do what he did and that is sell us and the club down the river to move to that dump and it was all to swell his own coffers and really at his age is making money really all he has to make him happy…afterall he has so much the Reaper who is not far behind him now will make sure he can’t take it with him.
Will Salthouse of the unique sports group has over 309 players on their books. Surely they got a couple of good ones we can have? If he’s such a mate of Sullivan by the way, why didn’t we buy Anthony Gordon or Brennan Johnson when they were available? Both Salthouse clients.
Scamacca – what might have been? If only we had seen his record before we signed him, it wasn’t great.
A player that spent a lot of his time out on loan in Italy prior to us signing him should have had alarm bells ringing.
Unfortunately, he was just another striker that was a poor signing, for whatever reason.
Haller was very different, we got a player that was bang in form, playing in an attacking 3 formation and Pelligrini just sucked the life out of him, only for Moyes to totally throw him overboard, despite the obvious quality he had but ultimately just wasn’t a lone striker type of player.
Any striker is a risk, especially if most of the team he is going to be playing in is rather average.
Yet Antonio was banging goals in left right and centre, (Mostly on the left actually,) at Nottingham Forest before he came to us. I reckon the championship is a similar level to the Dutch league.
And that was as a left winger.
I think some of the problems with our previous 2 big money strikers GLS and SH was their mobility or probably more importantly the way they were drilled to play by Moyes.
There are some big signings from the Dutch league that have been big failures. Kezman and who can forget Marco Boogers.
But we have no current striker (unless you count Danny Ings) so we need to take a risk but all Sulivan wants to do is get a player in who is represented by his agents so we end up with crap like Silva who if not injured will probably be a disaster.
The best bit of business in this window would be that the board go all 3 of them
Antonio’s finishing and distribution leaves a lot to be desired at the best of times, but he is a handful to opposition defenders and makes us much more of an attacking threat. If this guy is signed and he is similar, let’s hope his pace and strength does likewise for us. At the moment though, there seems to be a lot of rumour and counter rumour so I for one will take all speculation with a pinch of salt, until we get an actual club announcement.
Apparently there is a problem signing Brobbery…….Sullivan wont budge on price unless the player changes his christian name to Daylight!
😁
🤣👍
I’m not completely convinced that Brobbey is the answer to our problems but then again I do hope so. I guess he has been playing voor a very poor Ajax team for the last 2 seasons, with lots of upheaval due to hiring en firing of managers en Technical director etc.
Yep, let’s just hope he can develop. I think a target man would more likely be a Summer signing. You see strong forwards battling CHs all game long to the detriment of everything else. I think his assists will be as important as anything else for Cry, Kudus & Bowen. One point of concern is given the quality of CHS & defenders you have to be good technically to gain that extra yard, etc. Like many, I like the sound of Brobbery and trust believe Potter picks players who have real potential – so I remain hopeful, If he is clumsy on the ball and not technically capable, I take it all back though because all he’ll do is lose the ball in tight spaces or he’ll be a one trick pony who will punt & run and also lose the ball!! 😁
I meant Brobbey – caffeine has n’t kicked in yet.