OPINION
West Ham must really regret not snapping up the services of Spanish forward Paco Alcacer after pursuing him this summer.
The Sun, print edition, reported on August 5th (page 61) that the Hammers were keen to sign the 25-year-old attacker from Barcelona with the La Liga giants willing to loan him out.
Barcelona were thought to want a £3million loan fee for Alcacer as well as his £150,000-a-week wages covered, but the Hammers ended up failing in their pursuit, with no concrete offer reported, as the forward ended up being loaned to German giants Borussia Dortmund instead.
Whether the Spanish giants’ mouthwatering demands for their forward put the Hammers off is very likely as it was a huge amount to invest in borrowing a player, but the London club will now clearly be wishing that they had gone all out in their pursuit of him.
Since joining Dortmund in the summer, Alcacer has transformed into a goal machine who simply cannot stop scoring based on the numbers he is racking up.
The 25-year-old has scored six goals in three league appearances, one goal in his one Champions League outing and took just 29 minutes to grab himself a brace for Spain against Wales on Thursday night.
If Manuel Pellegrini had added the lethal finisher to his side this summer then they would no doubt be better for it.
Alcacer would have been able to link up with Andriy Yarmolenko, Felipe Anderson and Marko Arnautovic to make the Hammers have an attacking front-four that would have cause the rest of the Premier League to scream in horror.
While the Hammers manager did welcome centre-forward Lucas Perez to boost his side’s firepower, it’s clear that as it stands, Alcacer looks like he would have been the better investment.
Therefore the Hammers must regret not going all out for him this summer as he looks set to fire Borussia Dortmund to glory instead.
