The sick list at West Ham United grows – as with all clubs at this time of year – but the Hammers’ squad was thinly stretched before the injuries started to pile up at London Stadium. January is a notoriously difficult time to bring in decent value players as competing clubs seek to keep their own resources strong. As the club’s source states what we all know to be obvious, West Ham urgently need a striker. But it is looking unlikely the top target will be heading – even on loan – to London Stadium this January.
Loan target striker Evan Ferguson’s renewed ankle injury is likely to see him crossed off the ‘go-get now’ post-it note list nailed onto Tim Steidten’s computer screen. As confirmed at the weekend by theirishmirror.ie, ” Evan Ferguson faces “some more weeks” on the sidelines as he continues to recover from his latest injury set-back. The Ireland striker has missed Brighton’s last three games with an ankle knock.”
I’m sure Brighton would be using the 20 year-old themselves just now if they could, in view of Danny Welbeck’s absence.
So it is unlikely Brighton are playing ‘cat and mouse’ games with Ferguson to try and disrupt West Ham’s window: The Hammers are in enough trouble as it is.
With only Danny Ings available against Fulham tomorrow, Graham Potter is about to see for himself just how big a problem the lack of a frontman is going to be for the rest of the season.
Supporter calls for the club to splash the cash and pay £25 million for Jonathan David are somewhat missing the point. As much as we’d all like to sign the in-form David, the harsh reality is that there’s not much motivation for the top drawer Canadian to come to mid-table West Ham when he can take his pick of European – qualified Premier League teams if he hangs on until the Summer.
It’s desperate to have to rely on Danny Ings or believe he’ll suddenly come good. He showed against Villa that he is finished at this level and struggles to get to the pace of the game. Kudus might be worth a punt but his form this season has been poor compared to when he joined us last year. We definitely need to buy or loan a young striker with pace, power and a hunger to succeed. COYI!
Let’s try Kudas in the centre forward position ..? Against Fulham .. another tight game … and another to try out a academy player
Our next signing for a forward needs to be the right one …. ⚒️⚒️⚒️
I really don’t understand why Kudos hasn’t been played up front. It seems like a no brainer to me, he is quick, he can keep hold of the ball and he can score goals…
100% agree Neil, Kudus played as a false number 9 position at Ajax allowing him to play deeper to link up play as well as score so would love to see him in that role.
Why are we always looking abroad players that don’t fit our system, seems like every striker from across the water doesn’t work, we should be looking at the lower leagues here, we have done well over the years, ie Alan Taylor, Billy Jennings, and you can’t forget Billy Bonds from Charlton genius of a man.
Far too soon to give up on Danny Ings just yet. Danny was never going to be one for the future. He was brought in precisely for situations the like of which we face right now.
The trick is to play in the style that Danny Ings can cause problems to the opposition. Not just included and asked to be everything to everybody. He is not about to become the dream striker, the solution to all our troubles and the guy that does it all on his own whilst the rest of the team looks on and applauds.
Graham Potter will understand this and will set up the team with a remit to go and win games. Utilising Danny Ings to create as much mayhem and uncertainty with the opponents as he can.
Whilst Danny is not the answer we want or need, he is the ammunition that we have at our disposal right now. Graham has little option on personnel but he has the ultimate influence on how we play and get the most from what we have.
C,mon Danny. COYI
He’s had almost 2 years and scored 5 goals in 66 appearances! Hardly a case for not giving up on him yet. 5 years since he scored 25 goals in a season for Southampton and too slow now. Totally agree he is our only specialist striker now but surely we could use Kudus instead? He played in a false number 9 at Ajax allowing him to link up play from a deeper position.. Potter will certainly have done his research and has a good record of getting best out of players, but losing Fullkrug and Summerville plus Bowen and Antonio is a huge setback.
Hope the earlier report that we had bid £50 million for Duran is.correct although PSR is an obvious issue. No chance of getting him with Euro giants circling. but hoping they go for Jonathan David at £25 million.
Ok now it’s been confirmed that David / Ferguson / Rashford / Lath / Delap are either to elite / to expensive (wages) / injured / already agreed to go to other clubs.
No matter how many times we’ve been linked with David unlikely that sentimental feelings (loyalty) will prevail over cash.
Jonathan Tah is another player who has been linked numerous times (Moyes) but never seems to quiet make it.
So it’s heading towards the inevitable outcome of not signing a striker that’s young, pacey, currently performing (or any).
Although Ings has not played many minutes he’s not the shining star to cure lack of goals.
Potter has an almighty task without any light at end of the tunnel with just 3 weeks left.
Perhaps a list of actual feasible strikers available would be a good idea to quell speculation.
Good luck.
Just makes me feel that the truth is we have no money to buy anyone decent as if we did then as soon as Antonio was ruled out the plan would have been to get everything sorted to get the striker when the transfer window opened not scratching around during January hoping to find someone
The only hope we have with Jonathan David is that he sees that we’ve been linked with him since he graduated from requiring a pram as his main transport and remained interested across three managers so he sees that as some sort of “loyalty” towards him.
And seeing as we’ve only got Samson up front (when Ings lost his hairline it seems his striking ability left him but unfortunately when he “magically” restored his napper the talent remained on hiatus) then he might see guaranteed football as a major selling point so might work in our favour.
But with his ability and age he could likely find himself a club who are willing to pay the massive fee his agent was seeking (that apparently stopped us signing him in the summer) so seems unlikely, unfortunately.
We were always told that David Moyes preferred to work with a small squad (circa 23 players) yet this didn’t change when Jlo took over. Now we are reaping the consequences with injuries and our best youth players out on loan.
Who ever we look at as a striker has to be playing at the moment or atleast a regular squad man ,no injury proun oldie obviously. What about a centre half ,mav is dodgy when fit ,alvarez perhaps but then hopefully Rodriguez will be gone so he has to stay in midfield. Hope potter tells pacman losing the ball regularly puts the defence under pressure and he needs to stay on his feet and attempt to get the ball back.
We have brought this on ourselves .Steidten and whoever else dealt with the Summer transfer campaign.He was given a nice warchest to spend on players yet you could hear the screams of buy another striker please we need another.And how prophetic it has proved.Even given that Antonios crash was just a tragic accident he is approaching 35.We all knew Fullkrug had a terrible injury record and Bowen was bound to be injured at some stage of the season.Unfortunately the stars aligned to knock all 3 out in one foul swoop and that leaves us with the aged Ings for a while alone as our only recognised striker.We have had the striker curse since Dean Ashtons career was cut cruelly on England duty nearly 20 years ago.