According to different sources, Nuno Espirito Santo appears to be formulating a plan to create a squad ready to hit the ground running in the Championship, at modest outlay and once the bulk of the failed Premeir League side have been shipped out.
Good to see that someone is rolling up their sleeves behind the scenes and actually coming up with a plan how to get the Hammers out of this division.
Interestingly, the same striker name appears again, after frequent links both earlier this year and more recently, since the end of the season.
Swansea City’s Zan Vipotnik would seem to be a ‘person of interest’ to West Ham judging from the several different directions from which the same name appears.
sportsboom.co.uk name the same player in their ‘exclusive’ today.
“West Ham are monitoring Zan Vipotnik’s situation at Swansea City as Nuno Espírito Santo attempts to construct a squad capable of returning to the Premier League at the first attempt, SportsBoom can exclusively reveal. (Exclusive? We covered him last year!)
But Vipotnik, whose metrics make him the most effective attacking force in England’s second tier, has also attracted admiring glances from Nuno, whose experiences with Wolverhampton Wanderers taught him the importance of working with players with both the attitude and the work ethic required to thrive in EFL competition.
Having been unable to preserve West Ham’s elite level status, after being appointed as Graham Potter’s successor before Christmas, Nuno accepts that most of his biggest names are set to depart over the coming months, with Jarrod Bowen, Cryscencio Summerville and Mateus Fernandes among them.”
Indeed. Just the striker to fire in another 20 goals, Vipotnik might just be Nuno’s back up if Taty Castellanos decides he wants to quit London Stadium this summer: Don’t see any way West Ham are having both.
Playing as a lone striker, Vipotnik will have a hard time firing in another 20 goals. Antonio was exceptional in that lone striker role years ago.
Taty was at his best when he was supported up front, with Pablo causing a nuisance behind and around him, wh can’t we play two up top. With one or other dropping deeper when needed ? The rigid way in which this article describes a fixed formation is exactly the prehistoric thinking which I hoped had just exited.
I’m pretty sure that when we last played Championship football (pre GSB) we had four/five central stikers on rotation. Zamora, Cole, Ashton, Connolly, Harewood?
Or did we sign Ashton after promotion from Norwich?
Disagree with you there Martin, having both is exactly what we should have. We didn’t have enough goal threat last season to worry defences and put the opposition on the back foot. You normally don’t loose games by playing in the oppositions half most of the game and that’s what was wrong last season, we only played to score on the break, and that isn’t good enough we want a plan B.
I like him, thought we should have signed him a year ago when we were first interested.
He looks like a player that can play the lone striker role and occupy defenders, more like the strikers that have been successful at our club before
Less risk attached signing him in the championship and if we can get him at a good price we should go all in.