Reports that West Ham are in the market for a striker is, on the face of it, good news.
After all, Michail Antonio, Niclas Fullkrug, and Danny Ings have a combined age of about a millennium, and one of those has barely kicked a ball for the club. Therefore, with the average age of the Hammers’ team rivalling that of a Chelsea pensioners XI, West Ham fans should welcome news that the club is hunting for a striker of the spring chicken variety.
However, considering the botched recruitment process of the last transfer window, it would be fair to ask ‘who is targeting and buying the new striker’?
It would be fair to say that Tim Steidten has made a right pig’s ear of the Niclas Fullkrug deal, seemingly buying a player whom the head coach didn’t want and who evidently would have rather stayed in Germany anyway.
Surely Julen Lopetegui can’t be allowed to target the next striker when he is the second-favourite manager in the Premier League to get the sack, according to the bookies’ latest odds.
Ings has cost West Ham a fortune
Somebody at the club clearly has an eye for a player, as can be evidenced with West Ham’s interest in Jhon Duran and Samu Omorodion, who have turned out to be fine players. But it would also be true that either David Sullivan, Lopetegui, or Steidten (possibly all of them) decided that the deal was either too risky or too expensive.
Either way, it was a huge error of judgment, with the real risk being the overpriced transfer of a 31-year-old broken striker from the Bundesliga.
West Ham need a forward and need one desperately, but our club are incredibly bad at this stuff. Even the make-weights like Danny Ings are unsuited to the Hammers’ playing style and haemorrhage money.
So whoever makes the next decision needs to get it right and make sure the player suits the club and the manager who is going to use him.
Gonzo is quick to blame Steidten but I’d bet that his recommendation was to transfer Antonio and Ings and replace them with 20 year old Duran and Fullkrug as a senior proven option.
We all know who it was that wouldn’t pay the £40m for a young player and all we ended up with was the 31 year old “proven” option and so kept Antonio while Ings refused to leave.
And why do the media report Fullkrug as a £27m buy? I thought it was £21m plus add-ons that could take it up to £27m. It was probably Euros and not pounds as well…
C&H love to spread propaganda that fits the narrative of Sully & Brady.
Whoever we end up signing, I’m already cringing at the next disaster striker signing that inevitably awaits us!!!
We all know it won’t end well. 😐
If Sully had not made a pig’s ear appointing JLo and paid the agents fee for Jonathan David we wouldn’t be in this mess.
David is a proven goal scorer and has the pace we desperately required. We could also have made a considerable profit selling him at a later date.
Champions League clubs will be after him in either January or the summer as he is the real deal.
Not paying Amorim’s release clause or securing David was a massive error of judgement.
We all know who is to blame for the above.
Steindten ????Moyes kept him under control he has been given to much rope put names in a hat and come unstuck for the fraud he is
It’s STEIDTEN. I think you are not familiar with West Ham as you don’t seem to know what you are talking about in other posts as well.
Probably a Spurs fan coming on here for banter and a wind up as can’t even spell Tim’s name 🤦♂️🤣🤣