In November of last year, stats-based publication Breaking The Lines ran a feature on Taiwo Awoniyi on the back of his prolific start to the season with Union Berlin.
“Taiwo Awoniyi looks like a target man and plays like it too,” they wrote. “But, unlike most target men, that’s not all he does.
“Awoniyi (is also) full of running and often willing to drift wide and give the fullbacks a torrid time as well.”
If that sounds familiar, West Ham United supporters, then there’s probably a very good reason for that.
West Ham’s new Michail Antonio?
When reflecting on his departure from the London Stadium in January 2021, Sebastien Haller put his inability to make an impact under David Moyes down to the manager’s preference for a more mobile, energetic option in the final third than the lavish but languid Frenchman.
“Moyes preferred someone like Antonio up front,” Haller told The Guardian.
Now, Haller has 33 goals this season, including 11 in just eight Champions League games. Antonio, in contrast, has just ten. But ask Moyes who he would rather field at the sharp end of his West Ham frontline and he’d choose the latter every day of the week, every hour of the day.
At Ajax, Haller can afford almost to ‘goal-hang’ – lurk around the six yard area and tuck away any chances that come his way in a side who dominate 62 per cent of the possession on average (WhoScored).
A striker under Moyes, however, must do a lot more than that. Antonio leads the line with an intensity, a speed that Haller was never really capable of. If Haller is a scalpel, all precision and finesse, then Antonio is a blunt instrument. A bit messy, a bit uncompromising, but no less effective.
So what does that make Taiwo Awoniyi? Closer to Antonio, certainly, but with streaks of Haller in his game too.
The former Liverpool forward – a £25 million summer target for not just West Ham but also Newcastle United and Southampton (Goal) – is a better finisher than Antonio, having scored 17 for Union Berlin this term. He’s already their all-time highest Bundesliga goalscorer.
What’s more, Awoniyi admitted recently that he’d relish the opportunity to have a second stab at Premier League football, having been denied a chance at Liverpool due to work permit issues (Kicker).
Is it possible that, in Awoniyi, Moyes has found a centre-forward capable of emulating Antonio’s fearsome physical gifts and Haller’s instinctive finishing in claret-and-blue.
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“You can say that he’s selfless,” Bolton legend Jay-Jay Okocha said during AFCON, describing Awoniyi rather accurately as a ‘nuisance’ (Daily Post). “He’s working ever so hard, he’s kept that defence so busy.”
It is Awoniyi’s relentless work-rate that will endear him to Moyes. His ever-improving finishings skills, however, should quickly make him a favourite on the London Stadium terraces too.
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