With Andy Carroll apparently out until at least October and with the serious injury that happened to Enner Valencia last week, there is no doubt that the club needs to bring in at least one proven striker before the end of this summer’s transfer deadline and I’m sure they will try and get two nailed down by then.
Atletico Madrid’s Raul Jimenez appears to be close to a move pending a work permit decision and the Charlie Austin saga seems destined to go to the wire, with no club currently willing to pay QPR’s asking price of £15m for a player now in the Championship and in the final year of his contract.
The striker situation has understandably been the main discussion for the Hammers fan base but there is one new signing who was in action on Sunday that gave me cause for some real optimism that I didn’t expect to see.
After watching 45 minutes of Manuel Lanzini in Sunday’s friendly 2-1 defeat to Werder Bremen, there were signs of a player that could be a real surprise bonus this season.
I must admit that I am always dubious about any young South American flair player coming over to play in the Premier League for the first time, especially one that has been playing in the UAE Arabian Gulf League for the past year.
It’s early days but Lanzini’s work rate on Sunday was impressive, he seemed to be always available for a simple pass, had a bit of pace about him, looked to be positive when he got the ball and generally just looked like a very good all round footballer.
He replaced Dimitri Payet at half time but I could see him linking up quite well in the same team as the Frenchman on the right occasion, as he is certainly the type of intelligent player that should look better himself with better players around him.
Lanzini began his career at Argentine giants River Plate and earned the nickname ‘The Jewell’ at the club where former Hammer Javier Mascherano also started out. Like any young and promising no.10 from Argentina in recent times, he was unfairly compared to the great Lionel Messi.
He spent a season on loan with Brazilian club Fluminense and impressed before returning to River where he then stepped up another gear which earned him a call up to the Argentina U20 squad in 2013 winning 4 caps.
The move to Al-Jazira followed which presumably was clearly a move motivated by money rather than footballing ambition but at 22 years old he now has the chance to impress in one of Europe’s top leagues. Bilic has made a shrewd move by signing him on a season long loan deal initially, with the option of making the move permanent at the end of the season should he prove to be good enough.
West Ham have lacked some real cutting edge in pre-season although it isn’t panic stations at this stage. Like I said at the start of this article, they will surely have added to the squad by the end of the window but in the current circumstances Lanzini has suddenly become a very important figure when it comes to our Europa League future.
Bilic and the club have publicly made it clear that the opening Premier League game at Arsenal on Sunday has priority over the Astra game on Thursday night in Romania. With the Europa League tie standing at 2-2 and with key players set to be rested for that trip, Lanzini will be one of the main players that we will be looking at to help get us the win that will keep us in the competition.
Our fans seem quite split on the merits of progressing in the Europe this season but my thoughts are that someone like Lanzini could make himself a real hero on Thursday night. It is true that if the club doesn’t invest in another four or five players before the end of the window then we wouldn’t have a squad strong enough to be able to rotate and compete on both fronts throughout the season but I would personally love to have a few more European nights under the lights of the Boleyn Ground in our final year here.
Imagine a run to the last 16 of the competition playing a side like Napoli? What a night that would be.
As for Manuel Lanzini, let’s not expect too much too soon from him in the Premier League but after the encouraging signs that we saw in Sunday’s friendly there is certainly a hope that he can prolong the European dream that some of us have.
