Striker light: are West Ham pursuing the wrong kind of striker?

West Ham spent much of last summer pursuing strikers who were always unlikely to sign, such as Carlos Bacca, Alexandre Lazazette and Michy Batyshuayi. A similar pattern is emerging this summer. The Daily Telegraph reported that the Irons had record £20 million-plus bids rejected for Cologne's Anthony Modeste (not the first time West Ham would have fielded a Modeste strike force) and Villareal's Cedric Bakumbu. There are also rumours of interest in ex-Man United forward Javier Hernandez and Arsenal's Olivier Giroud — though again Everton look likely to below West Ham out of the River Lea on that one. 

It seems West Ham are still trying to buy established star strikers when we can't even offer European football. Surely a better approach would be to go for up and coming talent from Europe or the Championship or younger PL strikers from smaller teams such as Joshua King or Andre Gray. The most successful WHU purchase of a striker in recent years, until injury struck, was that of Diafra Sakho who cost £3 million and was relatively unknown. We've had all last season to formulate a clear plan but it still seems that West Ham are going scattergun for any big names who might to be on the market.

Striker light

Looks like Simone Zaza might be going in a swap deal to Napoli according to press rumours and comments from Simone's dad. West Ham would get Napoli's Manolo Gabbiadini in exchange. The whole Zaza deal has been a disaster so far and the 14-game buying clause has heaped pressure on both the player and club. If we get a loan player again then let's make sure it's for the whole season. And will another Italian striker who will take time to adapt be the answer? 

Meanwhile Diafra Sakho should be fit after the international break and may go straight into the first team at Tottenham according to the Evening Standard. If his head is right then Sakho is the best finisher we have at the club. Last season he appeared to be a young man struggling with too much wealth too soon but we have to hope that a failed move to West Brom and a lengthy spell out with a back injury have concentrated his mind.

Just read that West Ham have signed 32 strikers under Sullivan and Gold and very few have been successes. Demba Ba, Ricardo Vaz Te, Ilan and Diafra Sakho all did a job but we've had a lot of failures such as Benni McCarthy, Mido, John Carew, Sam Baldock, Andy Carroll (through injury not lack of talent), Modibo Maiga, Enner Valencia, Emenike, Zaza and Calleri. Andre Ayew might come good, but the next striker we sign really has to be a success. 

Striker light

Well, West ham have lost 2-0 to Malaga in the Shalke 04 Cup and Jenkinson managed to get injured, though it's hard to read too much into pre-season friendlies featuring several fringe players. Meanwhile the club is being linked with several strikers to replace the injured Andy Carroll. We've missed out on Samuel Eto'o because of his 100k a week wage demands. Peter Crouch is being mentioned too. He could do a job for four months, but he's 33 and is actually better on the ground than in the air, though the risk is we'd just pump in high balls at him. 

Connor Wickham is an intriguing name mentioned as he has only has one year left on his Sunderland contract and is a young striker of potential as he showed ar the end of last season. Though with Valencia (who admittedly needs three weeks' training according to Big Sam) and Zarate arriving, plus back-up from Carlton Cole, Maiga and Vaz Te you do wonder if we need to spend big on another striker to fill a four-month gap. Or is Carroll's injury worse than we think?

Still waiting for the right player at the right price…

West Ham's current search for a striker is starting to resemble the debacle of the 1987-88 season. The full sorry saga is recited in my book Hammers in the Heart, but to summarise, West Ham sold Frank McAvennie and were left with the Invisible Man up front, though we at least had Tony Cottee to play alongside him. For five long months we played Alan Dickens as a ghost striker, a midfielder with all the physical presence of Joey Essex. It was so traumatic for poor Dicko that he ended up as a cabbie.

West Ham's John Lyall tried to buy Kerry Dixon, Mick Harford, John Fashanu, Kevin Drinkell, Colin Clarke, Peter Davenport, Nico Clausen, Lee Chapman and quite possibly Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards. John Lyall even tried Paul Ince, Eamonn Dolan and Paul 'Diego' Hilton up front.

Hammer issued the following Micawber-esque statement: “Mr Lyall does not disguise the fact that we are looking for a striker but stresses there is no immediate panic particularly as the team are playing so well, at the moment. He says: ‘We simply want the right player at the right price. It’s as simple as that… the nice thing is that we are not under any pressure as the team are playing well and winning matches.”

To quote from Hammers in the Heart: "The Kerry Dixon saga was particularly excruciating. Ken Bates refused to let Dixon rejoin Arsenal for fear he might rediscover his goalscoring touch, but had no such worries about the Chelsea striker joining West Ham, immediately agreeing terms, only for the player himself to reject the deal and Lyall to claim that 'you have to be patient when you are pursuing quality.' The Daily Mail duly labelled West Ham 'the lepers of football.' "

Finally, shortly before the transfer deadline, Fulham’s Leroy Rosenoir agreed to sign for West Ham and amazingly scored on his debut as the Hammers just escaped relegation. And now 25 years on, it all seems to be happening again… We've been linked with Jermain Defoe, Shane Long, Demba Ba, Jordan Rhodes, Emmanuel Adebayor, Niklas Bendtner, Everton's Jelavic and just about anyone who has ever scored a goal. Once again, when the window opens, we're waiting for the right player at the right price.

Still striker light

Not wholly convinced by Big Sam's defence of signing Downing but no striker in yesterday's Evening Standard, where he writes: "What would have been said if Stewart had gone to Newcastle or somewhere else instead of us and we had still missed out on a striker which would undoubtedly have been the case because we didn’t have enough money to buy the quality we wanted?"

The fact is we'd have had £6 million more to throw at the problem if we hadn't signed Downing. The club knew all summer that Carlton Cole was going, we only had Maiga in reserve who is not a centre forward and that Carroll was injury-prone (and in fact injured!), so surely we could have found a big man somewhere, even from the lower divisions or Europe? Part of the problem seems to have been concentrating on proven PL players who were unlikely to say yes to us such as Ba, Lukaku and Defoe. It's not easy signing players, but you do think our scouting network should have had some alternatives.

Striker light

"We are happy with the rest of the team - all we need now is pace and goals," reveals David Sullivan in a Q and A session on 13-year-old son Jack Sullivan's Twitter account. Which is quite important really. Without pace and goals we'll struggle. Andy Carroll is a good signing but he's not likely to be fit for the start of the season. Modibo Maiga is promising and played in the 4-1 defeat of FC Mainz in Germany, but is not the big forward Sam likes to build a team around. 

After that there's nothing unless you count Vaz Te who is more of a wide player and youngster Elliot Lee (who missed a couple of chances at Colchester) and Paul McCallum who scored at Cork and might be promising. Looks like the Zapata deal has fallen through over work permit issues so the lack of depth is starting to look alarming. Joe Cole and Ravel Morrison give us new potential goalscorers from midfield but we desperately need another striker before August 17, otherwise WHU's whole season is going to depend on Andy Carroll. Anyone know any strikers out there? 

Misfiring strikers

Having finally seen Nolan's goal on Match of the Day 2 it's encouraging that Modibo Maiga had two touches in the move. Carlton Cole looked ponderous again and on Match of the Day 2 their alternative league table based on goals scored by strikers had us bottom of the league thanks to no goals this season by any of our strikers. Andy Carroll will surely rectify that, but until he's fit it's surely worth giving Maiga, who cost a hefty £4.7 million, a full game to see what he can do.