OPINION
With Leicester City striker Islam Slimani reportedly up for sale this summer, West Ham must try and sign him up this summer.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Premier League rivals Leicester have put a number of players up for sale this summer, including Slimani, Leonardo Ulloa, Ahmed Musa and Nampalys Mendy, as they look to trim their squad ahead of next season.
West Ham should take up this opportunity to sign a very good goalscorer, potentially on the cheap, as he would be a better option than the currently injured Andy Carroll.
The 30-year-old powerhouse, who currently earns £80,000-per-week at The King Power Stadium (Spotrac), is an excellent player who hasn’t yet had the trust of any of the managers he’s played under so far in English football.
He started just 13 games for the Tigers in his first season, despite signing for the club for £27million in August 2016. He would then play an even further reduced role in 2017/18, starting just three games in the entire season both at Leicester and on-loan at Newcastle United.
This is a player who, in 2015/16, scored an incredible 31 goals in 46 games for Sporting CP in Portugal. There is a player here but he’s been benched, untrusted and a wasted talent so far in England.
West Ham could change all that by securing his signature and making him their first-choice striker this season. With the service from wide areas, including new signings Andriy Yarmolenko and Felipe Anderson, he would score a whole load of goals at The London Stadium.
He’s a properly old-fashioned type target man who thrives off crosses into the box, much like Carroll. However, the 29-year-old Englishman has only got 33 goals in his entire Hammers career, that’s 128 games. The Algerian very nearly scored Carroll’s entire West Ham career goals in a single season.
Whether it’s on loan or on a permanent deal, the signing of Slimani would help reduce the loss of Carroll, and may even prove be his successor.
