West Ham United’s transfer miss over Aleksandar Mitrovic looks like an even more detrimental mistake by GSB, amidst the Serbian’s incredible start to this year’s Premier League campaign.
The Hammers were first linked with a swoop for the Serbian back in December 2016, after his £13million move to Newcastle United from Anderlecht saw him struggle in the Premier League.
Just three years later, reports surrounding the striker again emerged, with manager at the time Manuel Pellegrini said to have been targeting the Serb, as well as Valencia’s Maxi Gomez. Ultimately, the Hammers missed out on both and opted to move for Sebastien Haller; we all know how that went.
And more recently, there were links confirmed by insider ExWHUemployee, with West Ham said to have been interested following Mitrovic’s record-breaking Championship antics.
Six goals in just seven Premier League starts, following up from a record-breaking Championship goal-scoring campaign that saw the Serbian international hit 43 goals in 44 games, is enough to make the West Ham hierarchy shudder at the thought of their missed chance.
But there’s more.
Serbia’s all-time top goalscorer extended his international record with a hat-trick against Sweden in the Nations League on Saturday and further proved his ilk as an elite marksman.
There is no doubt that the 28-year-old is now in the prime of his career, and is taking games by the scruff of the neck, and scoring goals for fun.
It will come as an even more significant blow to the Hammer’s hierarchy when you add in the fact that Mitrovic has scored the same amount of Premier League goals as West Ham have as a squad this season, in his first three games – with two of those scored against Liverpool.
Ultimately, GSB had ample opportunity to sign the £43k-per-week star, who is surely destined for a move to an elite outfit in the near future, following some stellar goalscoring form over the last couple of seasons.
