OPINION
West Ham must rip up their plans to wave goodbye to Jordan Hugill at this stage after it was revealed that Andy Carroll was set to miss at least three months of action.
The Hammers confirmed via their official site on Thursday that Carroll was set to miss a minimum of three months of action after scans revealed that he needed more surgery on his ankle.
With the forward set to spend more time on the sidelines this means that the Hammers cannot let fellow attacker Hugill depart the club at this time.
It was previously reported by Claret and Hugh in May and has been regularly stated by variety of sites since that the 26-year-old forward was on the chopping block and that the club were ready to sanction his exit as soon as they got a respectable bid.
After clearly not being swarmed by offers for Hugill, probably because he has played only three games for the club, The Sun reported that Leeds United and Queens Park Rangers were both looking to take the 6ft tall (Transfermarkt) forward on loan for the season.
It seems likely that after hardly kicking a ball for the club that the Hammers would be open to the idea of sanctioning his temporary exit if either of those clubs submitted an offer to take him loan.
However with Carroll now out injured then Hugill must be held onto for at least the first-half of the season or until the club successfully sign a new forward in the time that remains in the transfer window.
While there is a few weeks left to recruit a new attacker, signing a new forward previously was claimed not to be on Manuel Pellegrini’s agenda so he would have to find a suitable target fast and work quickly to get a deal done.
Claret & Hugh previously stated that the experienced manager didn’t see signing a new goal machine as a priority as the club already had enough options up front with Marko Arnautovic, Javier Hernandez and Carroll to call upon.
Yet with one of those options not available for a significant amount of time due to injury, it must mean that Pellegrini believes he’ll be a player short when it comes to having the ideal amount of forwards to choose from.
This means that despite never really getting an opportunity to impress at the club since joining in January, plan’s for Hugill to exit must be shelved and instead he must be kept in order to be back-up for Hernandez and Arnautovic.
