We asked the West Ham public to name their favoured striker from our current batch and they have responded in pretty unexpected ways. While Simone Zaza looks likely to be a useful addition to the squad, it's something of a surprise that the vast majority (54%) of Hammers fans rate him as our single best forward - compare that with Andy Carroll in second place at 12% of respondents. And note, this is presuming that all are fit and available to play!
Zaza's strike rate in higher level football is slightly above a goal every third game (58/156 games), which is decent but not likely to produce the 20 goals a season haul that we covet. Perhaps his recent splendid strike against the Hammers during our preseason finale versus Juve has influenced fans?
Andy Carroll is nowhere near as prolific at 68 goals in 258 appearances (which is just above a goal every fourth game), but his fans can point towards his overall contribution to the team in terms of creating chances for others and also as a huge asset at opposition set plays.
Interestingly, Hammers fans have been taken with Ashley Fletcher who, despite his inexperience with only two Premiership appearances, is ranked third with 10 percent of the vote!
Poor Andre Ayew has obviously frustrated fans as, despite his £20 million transfer fee, trails in in fifth at 6% of the vote - 1% less than the out of favour Diafra Sakho. The Ghanaian International has a strike rate that is almost identical to big Andy at 79 goals in 294 top flight appearances.
Otherwise, Jonathan Calleri has yet to grab hearts after a serious of close misses since his recent arrival and only gets 2% of the vote - half of the 4% that the evergreen Carlton Cole has received despite no longer being registered at the club, apparently!
Finally, we may indeed love Dimitri Payet but only 3% of fans think he alone can produce the goals that we need to push towards the top six places in the Premiership.
Why not have your say by voting on our poll before it closes in 3 days time?
it's probably better to rely on goals from various players/ positions rather than one marquee signing who's leg would probably fall off after a few games, given our record on injuries.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to pour scorn on whichever striker tops this pole but apart from not understanding the point of loaning Calleri without a right-to-buy clause, I think we've got excellent forward options. Shame we don't have Europe to give them all game time.
I know there are claims that Ayew was bought to play a striker role but it would be more accurate up to this point at least, to compare his strike rate with Antonio rather than Carroll or Zaza as he has been a wide player (though admittedly not wing back) in which case we can all rejoice at his potential.
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