There were many positive signs from last night’s FA Cup defeat against Aston Villa. Sadly the exit of Niclas Fullkrug wasn’t one of them. After enduring three months of injury and rehab, the 31 year old front man was just getting back to match fitness. He actually played a pivotal part in West Ham’s early strike, linking up play well before Kudus and Summerville pressed on. However tempting it is to drone on in hindsight about the wisdom of signing an injury-prone 31 year old, the fact is that West Ham’s striker situation is now critical and has to be the number one priority in January.
No Jarrod Bowen, No Michail Antonio and now no Niclas Fullkrug. The wizened, championship – level Danny Ings is now the club’s only striker. And as we saw last night, he’s “the invisible man” when deployed.
So under four weeks to bring someone to the club means this is now urgent.
No excuses. Lille have priced Canadian front man Jonathan David at £25 million since he is in his last six months of a contract. 17 goals this season. 24 years old.
When I see all of the second tier strikers West Ham are linked with at £15-£20 million, it is time for the board to learn the lesson of the Jhon Duran debacle, pay decent money and get a first class, young, fit and functional striker. Wherever the money comes from, it makes football and financial success even if fringe players have to be evicted.
No goals, no points.
And please, not a ‘cheap striker imitation’ from the championship to save about £5 million. We’ve all, as teenagers on the beach in Mallorca, bought ‘Rolex’ £10 imitation Chinese copy watches and seen them fall apart after a week.
Jonathan David at £25 million or Emmanuel Latte Lath for £20 million. No-brainer.
David for £25 million would be as good a piece of business as Wan-Bissaka was for £15 million. As 3addedminutes.com report:”West Ham picking him up for £25m would be an absolute steal, particularly at a time when the club are desperate for goals with both Michail Antonio and Jarrod Bowen missing from first team action.”
Do the right thing, West Ham, support your new head coach. Build for the future.
Been saying since we were first linked with Jonathan David back in, what… the 1997/98 season(?) we should’ve been going for him but now it’s likely too late. He’s available to discuss a Bosman with non-French sides so can’t see him opting for us. It’s also that which makes £25 million seem a bit steep.
Past couple of summers when linked with him, the fees discussed were around £20-30 million so when we can have for naff all it seems a bit of waste of money. Pretty sure in the summer a £30m fee was agreed but his agent wanted a £10m lump fee as part of it and we dropped out because of that. The thing with freebies is agents often use the “money saved” argument to seek a larger signing on fee/wages so who knows what his agent will be looking for now…
That said, would still love to see him at the club and he’s also reportedly great mates with Angel Gomes so seeing as our midfield is a bit lacking in quality then (seeing as he’s also apparently out of contract in the summer) getting those BFFs would be two welcome additions.
We don’t seem to learn our lessons regarding strikers. Haller, Scamacca both outstanding players but isolated and lacking in pace and didn’t fit our system. Fullkrug is in that bracket with both of the above, but not what suits us. There’s no substitute for pace…
Jonathon David is the one we need to act on as he’s out of contract soon, young and scores and has pace!. 3 out of 3 boxes ticked.
Surely Tim Steidten has a list of strikers, many of whom are young pearls, ready for acquisition. That is why he was employed and that is why we can look forward to getting suitable players into our team without delay.
In Super Tim we trust. He will not need the ‘advice’ of the beach sellers. His picks will be genuine pearls. Not the shiny stuff from the pound shop.
COYI
No chance of selling kullkrug now so stuck with another bad buy. At least last night there was a shining light in scales.
Sully would prefer to wait until summer for a freebie but he will be long gone.
Can see how Duran’s value has escalated and that could be same with David.
Reported 7 clubs are interested in his services and apparently one he’s been offered to is whu.
Sully is supposed to be an businessman and should grab David with both hands.
Cheap options are hardly ever the best in long run.
Sell Kudus can’t see Potter doing that just wave his magic wand and get what would be a spectacle buy.
No good getting into penalty area without somebody to put it away.
Crying over Duran move on and get a much better option.
With less than 3 weeks left need to pull their finger out.
Ings (Antonio looks ominous) wages will pay David’s suggested £100,000 a week.
All second rate options. We haven’t had a potential top class striker since Dean Ashton. Why not go back in for Dhuran even if it means selling Kudus. Excellent player though he is we have Bowen and Summerville as wide men
100% agree and his body language is awful at times. Without a word spoken you can see he doesn’t want to be here.
Spot on
We weren’t far off the price for Duran but decided not to pay the bit extra and to spend best part of as much on Fullkrug instead as a cheaper option.
Yesterday I saw a valuation for Duran at £71M because he’s scored a goal every 100 minutes since. Fullkrug was just starting to get up to speed now has broken down again.
Terrible terrible terrible decision and it wasn’t even the worst decision taken at that time.
100% agreed.
He is running down his contract so he can get a move to a big club and ask for big wages. I don’t why he would come to us in January.
So the guy with 6 months on his contact is gonna join West Ham after the season he’s had? He’ll be going Liverpool for free why wouldn’t he just wait and make all the money for himself?
My heart agrees 100% but my head says we will always go for the cheaper option, ☹️
Selling Emerson to Juventus could help fund that move but you no us we love dragging our feet
I suspect – with no evidence, mind, that Emerson may already be pencilled in: unexplained ‘injury’ absences in January
Could we do some sort of loan swap for Douglas Luiz? Forest have been linked and apparently he hasn’t settled at Juve. Just what we need in midfield.