Javier Hernandez is making his way back from a hamstring injury, but his return to fitness may not be that big a boost for West Ham given how poorly he has played. Where has it gone wrong for this magnificent footballer?
Javier Hernandez is an incredible goalscorer. Overall in his club career he has 140 goals in 359 games, and for the Mexico national team he is the leading all-time scorer with 49 goals in 99 games.
In the last 10 seasons, Hernandez has failed to score double figures on just three occasions. One of those was 10 years ago during his first campaign as a regular, one was whilst he was being managed by David Moyes, and the other was 2014/15 when he spent the season on loan at Real Madrid as a back-up.
Suffice it to say, this is a man who knows how to put the ball in the back of the net.
So why is he having such trouble doing it for West Ham?
Chicharito had just 4 goals in 13 games before his hamstring injury. And when you consider that two of those goals came against Southampton then that means he’s had 10 scoreless outings for West Ham.
This was a move that made so much sense on paper. For it to just be floundering like this is quite incredible. After all, with Andy Carroll and Marko Arnautovic, West Ham had two perfect tall strikers for Hernandez to play off.
Unfortunately West Ham they aren’t really creating the chances for Chicharito. The Mexican has an impressive shot conversion of 21% – a figure which puts him 10th in the league (of all players with more than 18 shots) ahead of the likes of Alvaro Morata, Sadio Mané and Romelu Lukaku.
However Chicharito has taken just 19 shots at goal, a figure well below the division’s top scorers. Harry Kane has taken 80 shots, Mohamed Salah has 54, Morata has 43. Hernandez is just not getting the service from West Ham.
When he does, he makes good use of it. Only four players have a better big chance conversion rate than Hernandez’s 80% (he’s scored 4 times from 5 big chances) and they’ve all got 100% because they’ve only had one or two big chances. Chicharito has just had 5 for West Ham and has made the most of them.
And that’s the simple fact of the matter. Why has Javier Hernandez struggled? He’s been denied consistent quality service. Had Chicharito been given 14 big chances like Mohamed Salah, or 12 like Harry Kane, then you can be sure he would have many more than just 4 goals in his 11 Premier League games so far.
The advice for David Moyes is simple: fix the midfield, and you fix Chicharito.
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