As the transfer window season draws to a close, West Ham are still desperately short of attacking firepower. With barely a week to go, the Hammers have been in the market for a couple of forwards for so long even the most die-hard Hammers fan begins to feel uncomfortable.
At this point, your ever optimistic Clog wearing scout would consider going to an Atomic Kitten concert (with Kerry Katona mind you) in exchange for seeing the Irons secure a quality attacker, after all, desperate times call for desperate measures.
I have every faith in Dux, Nani and Zola identifying the players that we need and trying to bring them in, but a part of me wonders; is their knowledge enough? Why shouldn’t I reach out to the three of them and publicly offer my advice on the current transfer market? It might sound arrogant but if every little bit helps, why the bloody hell not.
Scouring the internet (as I usually do when I’m looking for transfer gossip and rumors) I’ve come across several interesting players who would improve West Ham and wouldn’t cost an awful lot.
Therefore I proudly present to you, a list of strikers from all over the world who could/should move to West Ham. Enjoy!
* Name:Goran Pandev
* Age: 26 years
* Nationality: Macedonian
* Current club: Lazio Roma
* Suited for West Ham because:
- Fits into Zola’s system as he often likes to play off the big target man, but can also himself be used as the deep striker.
- Has experience (having played at international level, CL level and Uefa Cup level).
- Has got pace to burn and wonderful technique.
- In the defensive minded Serie A, he has always been able to score goals, as you can see here.
- According to reports in Italy, he wouldn’t cost much (5 million pounds).
* Rating: 8/10
* Name: Ernesto Chevanton
* Age: 29 years
* Nationality: Uruguyan
* Current club: FC Sevilla
* Suited for West Ham because:
- Surplus to requirements at Sevilla, so wouldn’t cost much.
- Again, a striker that likes to play off the target-man and has pace to burn.
- Has scored goals at every club he’s gone to including 48 goals in 92 matches in the Serie A for Lecce, as you can see here.
- He still has that scoring ability, as he demonstrated in a friendly game against Arsenal (he scored Sevilla’s goal in their 1-1 draw).
- Good in the air (so far he has scored 1/3 of his goals with his head)
- Would benefit from working under Zola as he’s a confidence player who needs an arm around the shoulder at times, rather than a shout in his ear telling him to ‘improve or ‘do one’’.
* Rating: 7/10
* Name: Mohammed Kallon
* Age: 29 years.
* Nationality: Sierra Leonese
* Current club: unattached
* Suited for West Ham because:
- Wouldn’t cost a penny
- Can play in different positions upfront, on the wings, central as the main striker or behind the main striker as a support striker.
- Posses a lot physical strength to hold off opponents.
* Rating: 6/10 (ideal stop gap signing, but that’s about it)
* Name: Mauro Boselli
* Age: 24 years
* Nationality: Argentinian
* Current Club: Estudiantes de la Plata
* Suited for West ham because:
- Widely recognized as a talented striker who Diego Maradonna will be keeping an eye on for the national team.
- With his relatively short height (1.75 m) and taking his role at Estudiantes into account, he’s an ideal support striker. Plays for Estudiantes in that role alongside the big center forward Salgueiro.
- Has a tendency to produce spectacular goals, such as this one.
- Has scored 8 goals in the Copa Libertadores (South-American CL) last season, playing a big part in winning Estudiantes the trophy. This is relevant as the Copa Libertadores features defenders who don’t mind wacking a striker into a coma. In other words: he’s used to playing against physical defenders, which can only be a good thing if you want to make it in the Premier League.
- His game is all about pace, and he’s got plenty of it. He would give us an extra dimension going forward.
- Has been estimated at 8 million euros. Which, given his rising status in Argentina, isn’t an awful lot of money.
* Rating: 7/10
* Name: Marco Pantelic
* Age: 30 years
* Nationality: Serbian
* Current club: unattached
* Suited for West Ham because:
- Fox in the box type of striker, something we’ve desperately lacked for a number of years now.
- Has two good feet and also scores a lot of headers despite his relative short hight of 1.83 meters.
- As with Kallon: wouldn’t cost a penny due to him being transfer free.
- Scored 1 in 3 for his last club Herta BSC in the Bundesliga; 45 goals from 114 matches, by no means easily done, as shown here.
- Has international experience playing for Serbia and for Herta in the Uefa Cup.
- Also has an eye for his fellow strike partner, as he proved last season with Liverpool’s Andrey Voronin: he scored 13 goals in 33 appearances but also had a total of 8 assists.
* Rating: 7/10
Well that’s it folks. I feel I have done everything in my powers to help the cause. Hopefully Duckers or Nani will be looking at this list and make a phone call to get one of these players in. Money might be tight at West Ham but as you’ve seen from my list of strikers; you don’t have to spend big to get a decent striker in.
These, of course aren’t the only strikers I could think of, I haven’t even begun about strikers from the lower English leagues (such as Nicky Maynard or Jermaine Beckford) but that’s down to the fact that most West Ham fans already know these players. I wanted to add some ‘unknown quantity’ flavor to the mix.
With this I bid you farewell, as this will be, most likely, my last article for a while. But don’t worry! With the grace of the football gods, I will be back in January to fill your heads and spare time with my thoughts about signing a full back from Vietnam called Stu pid Sod or a striker from Guatemala called Pablo Cuntierrez
Until then I say to you all: Come on you Irons!!