Who should lead the line?

With Marouane Chamakh and Wellington Paulista coming into the West Ham United ranks on six month loan deals during the January transfer window. Should Sam Allardyce turn to one of the new boys to lead the line? Or should he stick with the players who are already at the club?

 

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The main candidates for the solitary spot upfront who have been playing for us already are Carlton Cole, Ricardo Vaz Te and Modibo Maiga until Andy Carroll returns from his long term injury. Cole and Vaz Te have both missed chances that I probably could have put away and being in the Premier League we need strikers who are going to be able to take chances when they are given and in my opinion we can’t rely on either player to be our main striker, even though Carlton Cole has improved throughout the year and Ricardo Vaz Te is just coming back from injury I don’t think that they are good enough to be our main strikers.

 

Then you have Modibo Maiga who came in for £5 million in the summer and apart from his goals against Southampton and Chelsea he has been very uninspiring in claret and blue, and he hasn’t looked like a part of the team in opposition to the lone man that he seems to have become since his move to England, as he has had countless chances to get an assist to help the team to get the result but instead has gone for a shot which usually just gets blocked and cleared. There is a reason that we have gone into the market and that is because none of the strikers have been reliable enough to be named as our main striker.

 

 

Then you have the two new boys Marouane Chamakh and Wellington Paulista who will both come into the West Ham squad hoping that they can hit the ground running in order to either impress their parent clubs or get a permanent move to the Hammers, so I think that they should both definitely at least be given a chance.

 

Chamakh is the man with the Premier League and international experience and has 8 PL goals in 40 games and even though his goal scoring record may not be the best but he has experienced playing at the top level even playing in the Champions League so we know what we will get with him. The other striker that we have brought in, Wellington Paulista, has scored 10 goals in 19 games this season, showing a much better goal scoring record than Chamakh and at 6 foot tall he should be strong enough to be a lone striker but there is no guarantee that he will be able to deal with the physicality of the football in the Premier League.

 

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There is one youngster I feel could challenge the more senior players and that is Elliot Lee, who has been a class act whenever he has played for the Development Squad and youth team this season and has been in and around the first team lately. He has showed that he can score goals at lesser levels, especially after scoring three hat tricks in a row and scoring two goals during the FA Cup game. He is a player who I think could deal with the physical side of the first team game and has shown before that he can score goals, so I don’t see why he shouldn’t continue to challenge for a place in the starting line-up. The other youth player who could be challenging soon is the new signing Sean Maguire, if he hits the ground running in the Development Squad it may not be too long until we see the man who was joint top scorer in the Irish First Division challenging for a first team place.

 

 

There are many options that Sam Allardyce could take in terms of who he will use as his striker, but if I was him I would go with Marouane Chamakh because of the fact that he has Premier League experience and could be a great target man who has previously showed that he can finish, and the two players that I would put on the substitutes bench would be Wellington Paulista because of his scoring record and Elliot Lee as he has great potential in my eyes.

 

I would actually look to sell Modibo Maiga as I feel he has been a very uninspiring signing and the money gained from his sale would help to cover the cost of other moves that West Ham make this transfer window.

 

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