The West Ham United striker scored a brilliant hat-trick in the club’s 6-0 win this weekend, which will have had Premier League scouts highly impressed.
When Sam Allardyce recruited Ricardo Vaz Te from Barnsley in January, he will no doubt have mentioned used the prospect of top flight football as a selling point in bringing him to Upton Park.
Back then the Hammers were clear favourites for promotion along with Southampton, but in recent weeks Reading have crashed the party, defeating West Ham 4-2 at the Boleyn a fortnight ago.
Two into three won’t go, and right now West Ham are the odd ones out, sitting in third with just three league games to go.
That isn’t to say they won’t go up, the three point deficit can still be overturned, and then there are the play-offs, known as a lottery, but the odds (1 in 4) are in fact far better.
But if, West Ham are unsuccessful, holding onto their top players will be each bit as challenging as last summer.
One they will not want to see snapped up by the Premier League vultures- is Ricardo Vaz Te.
The 25-year-old Portuguese striker is a livewire who was irrepressible on Saturday, bagging a spectacular hat-trick against Gus Poyet’s disappointing Brighton side.
He has scored 10 goals in 12 games for the Hammers, bringing his league tally for the season to 20, impressing all who have watched him.
There is a fine margin between success and failure, as West Ham are about to find out one way or another.
Right now, Vaz Te will be targeting playing in the Premier League next season, and he has contributed even above expectations so far at West Ham.
Should the club marginally miss out, he will be left with a choice of adjusting his own targets, or seeking a quick-fix route of angling for a move to a Premier League
There would be plenty of suitors for him- a club like Wigan Athetic say, should they survive, may well deem him to be a worthy addition to their squad.
It is not like West Ham need any more incentive to return to the Premier League, but hanging onto their newest star man may just give supporters one extra reason to hope they return to the top flight.
The club have seen their top talent plucked from them over the past 15 years- they will not like to see another go when he is just getting started.
Can West Ham hang onto Vaz Te even if they miss out on promotion? Or are the effects of failure not an option fans want to consider at this stage?
image: © Ben Sutherland
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