West Ham received a much-welcomed boost today as it was confirmed that the injury Enner Valencia picked up against Astra in the Europa League is not as bad as first feared.
There were rumours that the Ecuadorian’s injury was ‘significant’ enough for the forward to be out for around six months but the actual figure is 12 weeks. Valencia will also avoid surgery on his fibula so this is something that also shortens his time on the treatment table.
Although this is definitely good news, West Ham are left without another striker as Valencia joins Andy Carroll on the striker injury list. That means that the Hammers are now left with Diafra Sakho, Mauro Zarate and Modibo Maiga as the only recognised senior strikers in the West Ham squad.
Sakho has been in good form throughout pre-season and Zarate has also put in some good performances but Bilic cannot rely on such sparse numbers up top, especially when Sakho’s injury record is not particularly encouraging either.
One name that looks set to arrive at the club is Atletico Madrid striker Raul Jimenez. He has not played regular first team football for a while but he certainly has potential and the club seem convinced that he is the man that will improve West Ham’s attacking options. The only stumbling block to the loan deal is whether the striker can obtain a work permit or not. The club should know before the Arsenal game if Jimenez can sign for the season.
It is clearly good news that the club are now moving quickly to secure a striker but West Ham need one more top quality forward at the club and right now, Jimenez simply does not fit that particular description.
The big two targets are Charlie Austin and Javier Hernandez. It doesn’t look like any club in England is willing to pay the £15 million asking price for Austin and this could be a deal that drags on until the end of the window. The test for West Ham here is whether they will attempt to move on to other targets or bide their time and wait until QPR are forced to lower their asking price for their star forward.
The more likely capture looks like Javier Hernandez as Manchester United themselves are in the market for a new striker. Hernandez is in familiar territory yet again as it looks like he will be used as a back-up option at Manchester United and the prospect of playing regular first-team football could be something that sways the Mexican’s decision in the end. There is also the advantage that he’s cheaper than Austin as well so he ticks all the boxes for West Ham. If United do sign a striker soon, expect the Hammers to go all out for the ‘little pea’.
The Hammers will be looking to sign at least one striker before Arsenal but the chances of the club securing one of their top two targets any time soon look remote. Although this is frustrating, it’s fair to suggest that we’d all rather wait for an Austin or a Hernandez rather than panic buy when there is a lot of time left in this current window.
I cannot believe we are still including miaga in our strikers line-up he is and has been a waste of space for me, I would have rather had kept Cole, miaga need’s to go and we need to get in 2 strikers and bring in lee .