Moyes reveals reason for no striker signing

David Moyes has admitted he faced a tough task to find a centre forward as a backup to Michail Antonio saying he couldn’t get any of his suitable targets for different reasons. Transfer price, wage demands and guaranteed game time are likely to be the main reasons he couldn’t land his back up striker.

The manager admitted he only had a finite budget so tried to make it go as far as possible in adding players who could add goals and assists.

Speaking to reporters on Friday Moyes said

“Trying to find someone who could replace Mic wasn’t easy, but we tried, We found ones which we thought would be suitable but we couldn’t get them for different reasons. Ultimately trying to replace Mic isn’t easy so probably a week or two back I had made up my mind that it would be very difficult to get another No.9 who would be suitable back up so I needed to find other ways of making that work.

“I wanted to get goals and assists into the team and trying to find centre forwards who were gettable at the right price wasn’t easy.

“I had to think very carefully about how I was going to spend the money I had and what I could do. If I had used it all up on a No.9 who may have had to sit on the bench while Micky played might not have been the right way.

“So I am hoping that we have got somebody in Nikola Vlasic someone who can play several roles, as we had with Jesse [Lingard] last year and I felt that was probably the better way to go at the moment. We have Jarrod, we have Yarmolenko, maybe Nico if he is called upon.”