West Ham not buying a striker: Sign of maturity or missed opportunity?

Never has the condition of Michail Antonio’s hamstrings felt so important to West Ham United.

Following the non-arrival of a new striker in the January transfer window, there should be enough money available for the club to purchase three months’ worth of cotton wool to wrap Antonio’s legs in after every game to try to avoid the injury bug biting him again.

How has it come to this? West Ham have exceeded expectations and David Moyes’ side can dare to dream of ending it with a European spot. The club rarely find themselves in these positions, especially during the first half of a season.

Teams around West Ham in the table have struggled with consistency. Chelsea are going through a transitional phase under their latest new manager Thomas Tuchel. Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Leicester City have been hit and miss. Everton and Liverpool have not been their best.

There is always the eternal debate for clubs outside the so-called “big six” over whether they should push on in an attempt to make the Champions League. Recent examples include the 2015-16 season, when Leicester shocked us all by not just finishing in the top four but actually winning the title. In the same campaign, Southampton missed out on fourth place by four points, while the 2011-12 season saw Newcastle United come nearly as close to achieving the same feat.

This is West Ham’s best chance yet of breaking into the Premier League top four and fulfilling David Gold’s 2016 prophecy that they could be playing Champions League football within the next five years. After all the failed promises from the board, this is the chance to go for it and show they are no longer content with just staying up, that a club of West Ham’s potential can kick on and compete with the elite clubs in the upper reaches of the division.

They appointed Manuel Pellegrini to reach the “next level”, but it is Moyes — the man the Chilean replaced and then got replaced by — who has put them in a league position where they are looking down on all their London rivals. But instead of West Ham fans being overwhelmed with joy, there is a sense of frustration at the club’s failure to sign a striker to help keep the momentum going in the second half of the season.

“We were looking,” said Moyes. “We had money to spend (having sold striker Sebastien Haller to Ajax at the start of January). But we’re trying to do things differently at West Ham. Hopefully, we can start another rebuild in the summer.”

Perhaps Moyes is right to think it would be in the club’s best interest to wait until the right player becomes available.

Let’s not forget West Ham have notoriously got it wrong when it comes to signing strikers. Marouane Chamakh, Benni McCarthy, Jordan Hugill, Marco Borriello and Nicky Maynard all joined at the halfway stage of a season and then failed to impress. The only strikers signed in the January window over the past 10 years who helped improve the team were Demba Ba in 2011 and Ricardo Vaz Te 12 months later.

Borriello was one of several January-signing strikers who did not succeed at West Ham (Photo: Ian Walton/Getty Images)

Finally, West Ham have a manager who does not give in to the temptation of signing players for the sake of it.

Moyes’ mantra has always been to sign young up-and-coming players who have resale value. It is one of the main reasons he has received praise for the impacts Tomas Soucek, Jarrod Bowen and Vladimir Coufal have made since joining over the past 12 months. All clubs’ finances are stretched at the moment, too, with COVID-19 keeping fans away from most grounds for approaching a whole year, so any spending has to be done with caution.

But following Sunday’s home loss to Liverpool, the reality of having to rely on an often-superb but injury-prone forward in Antonio for the remainder of the season means West Ham are vulnerable. Moyes was tasked with signing a striker after Haller was sold for £20.5 million on January 8, 18 months after being signed for a club-record £45 million.

Following Haller’s departure, West Ham were linked with an astonishing 33 strikers by different media outlets: Joshua King (who instead moved from Bournemouth to Everton), Oliver Giroud (Chelsea), Abdallah Sima (Slavia Prague), Boulaye Dia (Reims), Ivan Toney (Brentford), Patson Daka (Red Bull Salzburg), Arkadiusz Milik (Napoli, now on loan at Marseille), M’Bala Nzola (Spezia), Adam Armstrong (Blackburn Rovers), Ismaila Sarr (Watford), Luka Jovic (Real Madrid, now on loan at Eintracht Frankfurt), Eddie Nketiah (Arsenal), Lassina Traore (Ajax), Youssef En-Nesyri (Sevilla), Gaetan Laborde (Montpellier), Alassane Plea (Borussia Monchengladbach), Krzysztof Piatek (Hertha Berlin), Andy Delort (Montpellier), Mikel Oyarzabal (Real Sociedad), Giovanni Simeone (Cagliari), Adam Hlozek (Sparta Prague), Henry Onyekuru (Monaco, now on loan at Galatasaray), Odsonne Edouard (Celtic), Josh Maja (Bordeaux, now on loan at Fulham), Willian Jose (Real Sociedad, now on loan at Wolverhampton Wanderers), Edin Dzeko (Roma), Jonas Wind (FC Copenhagen), Hwang Hee-chan (RB Leipzig), Kwadwo Baah (Rochdale, joining Manchester City in the summer), Andre Silva (Eintracht Frankfurt), Cyle Larin (Besiktas), Moussa Dembele (Lyon, joined Atletico Madrid on loan) and Diego Costa (free agent).

It is fairly routine for West Ham to be linked with a host of players during the window. It is also well documented the club have signed 49 strikers, the majority of whom failed to impress, since the current board took co-ownership in January 2010. But despite their poor track record in recruiting forwards, it is worrying to have not brought in cover for Antonio. They did try though, with failed bids for En-Nesyri, Laborde and other unnamed targets.

It would have been demoralising for the London Stadium faithful to see Premier League rivals Everton and Fulham sign King and Maja respectively, considering they were both on West Ham’s radar. Although both players have paltry goalscoring returns for Bournemouth and Bordeaux this season (combined total of two league goals in 29 appearances), just knowing the club have a safety net in the event Antonio gets injured again would have satisfied many supporters.

The club didn’t even have to break the bank to sign a striker. There is a market for players such as Charlie Austin (who moved from West Bromwich Albion to Championship side Queens Park Rangers on loan in January), Odion Ighalo (back at Shanghai Shenhua after his Manchester United loan ended) and Watford’s Troy Deeney. That trio are all on the wrong side of 30 and aren’t names that would excite fans but a signing of that nature — perhaps on a short-term loan — is something the club should have explored.

Amid the frustration, it is worth noting Moyes is very good at finding solutions. Before the first lockdown last March, nobody could have foreseen wide-man Antonio turning into a clinical goalscorer. In Moyes’ first spell in charge of the club in 2017-18, he also had the vision to similarly convert Marko Arnautovic from a winger to a striker. It is brilliant coaching by the Scot and his staff, and there is every chance he could unearth a goalscorer within his current squad. If the worst happens to Antonio, Andriy Yarmolenko would be the obvious option to move inside and play as a lone striker. But Yarmolenko struggles with consistency in his own position and has not shown any sign he has the work rate to excel up front.

New loan signing Jesse Lingard could play there but is primarily a winger/attacking midfielder and based on Pablo Fornals’ struggles against Liverpool, the Manchester United man looks likely to challenge the Spaniard for a starting place. Bowen is another alternative but he is also more effective on the flanks.

On paper, another option that could work is playing Soucek, West Ham’s top scorer in the league this season with seven goals, as the central attacker. But his excellent midfield partnership with Declan Rice would suffer as a result.

Ademipo Odubeko is a highly-rated prospect who is well thought of behind the scenes at the club. The 18-year-old scored twice and provided an assist in a 3-1 win over Southampton at under-23 level last week. Moyes and first-team coach Stuart Pearce were at that game, and have already given Odubeko his first-team debut off the bench (in the FA Cup last month). The teenager is deserving of more first-team opportunities, but he has only just returned from a four-month spell on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.

It has reached a point where Moyes doesn’t even have the luxury of fielding two nominal strikers at the same time, following the decision to allow Oladapo Afolayan to join fourth-tier Bolton Wanderers on loan until the end of the season.

So the club will be heavily reliant on Antonio for the remainder of the season and their European aspirations appear to rest on his ability to stay fit.

For all the good work Moyes has done, it would be a great shame if an injury to a single player were to derail the whole campaign.

Moyes’ Everton dared to dream when they finished fourth in 2004-05.

West Ham can give it everything they have over the next three months to achieve a similar feat, but one can only hope the decision not to sign a striker in January doesn’t come back to haunt them.

(Top photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)