Strikers – 98/99 John Hartson apps: 17, goals: 4 and Ian Wright apps: 22, goals: 9 Vs 01/02 Frederic Kanoute apps: 27, goals: 11 and Jermain Defoe apps: 35 goals: 10 Vs 14/15 Diafra Sakho apps: 14, goals: 8 and Enner Valencia apps: 17, goals: 3
Having finished the 97/98 season as West Ham’s top goal scorer with 24 goals in 42 games in all competitions, many were excited about the prospect of at the time record signing John Hartson for 98/99. Unfortunately, his training ground bust up with Eyal Berkovic subsided with a loss of form and he only managed four goals from 20 games before being sold to Wimbledon for £7.5million in January 1999 and being replaced by Paolo Di Canio.
Well push now comes to shove West Ham, as if you really want to challenge for those European qualification places then you simply cannot afford to not go on a winning run now. If we could go on a winning run now of say 3 Premier League games, then with 42 points on the board after 24 games I’d say we’d have a fair chance of getting something from this season with the then remaining 14 games left. If we don’t get a good haul of points after the next 3 Premier League games? Then the chance may be lost. We need a game a goal Sakho to return from injury and it would also help if Carroll can start getting what he is paid for, being £100,000 per week, to get a goal a game. If those 2 players can bring us 2 goals between them a game, and maybe a goal every 2 games from Valencia, then we would qualify for Europe no problems, but it just has to start happening otherwise we’ll be looking at our final season at the Boleyn, in which to try and qualify for European competition in, to co-inside with our move into the Olympic stadium, and with a stadium which housed 80,000 during the Olympics, there is no reason, in the future, that we cannot house more than Manchester United. COYI
I think Cottee and Mc Avennie are the best we’ve had. They will take some beating in West Ham’s history.