West Ham were knocked out of the Carabao Cup and none of their strikers had a shot on target. Does David Moyes need to enter the transfer market for a replacement?
Having zero shots on target in a cup match is bad, but in a quarter-final? A game that will put you two results away from an appearance at Wembley in a season where that could be an incredible lift to the whole club.
That’s unforgivable.
It would be understandable if David Moyes did want to bring in another striker after such an abysmal display, after all look what he has to work with:
Andy Carroll is a seismic presence in the opponent’s box and when fit is a brutal nigh-unmarkable striker whose sole dimension of play is utterly beyond the comprehension of most modern centre-backs.
But he’s never fit.
Diafra Sakho is blazingly quick and has supreme striking instincts, able to finish smartly when 1v1.
But he’s got a clause in his contract that pays him £50k per league start, and West Ham have clearly decided he’s not worth that kind of expenditure. The Daily Mail are now reporting that Sakho wants to leave.
Javier Hernandez is a proven goalscoring sensation. Put the ball in front of him and he will put it in the back of the net.
But his style is at odds with the way West Ham play. They can’t create chances for him.
André Ayew is a majestic no. 10, able to roam the channels, probing space, linking with his team-mates and producing moments of magic in the biggest of games.
But he’s not a no. 9.
Marko Arnautovic is a devastating combination of pace, power and skill. He has the potential to be as devastatingly impactful as Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
But he’s inconsistent.
Arnautovic has actually been really good for David Moyes so far, the only striker who has. That he didn’t start against Arsenal highlights his importance for the team’s relegation battle. But it has to be said that he is an inconsistent player and the odds on him maintaining this form until the end of the season are low.
That’s five strikers who are all various degrees of failure burned into them in their time playing for West Ham. If Moyes wanted to cut and run no one would blame him, but it would be the wrong thing to do.
Yes, all those strikers have struggled and Diafra Sakho may well be on the way out anyway; but they’re all talented. The issue of being “good enough” isn’t key, what’s key is are they playing well enough? With the exception of Arnautovic, obviously not.
So does David Moyes need a replacement striker in January? No, what he needs to do is find a player to create chances for those strikers. A playmaker who can find these forwards in promising positions much as Dimitri Payet used to do. Putting a new striker in the same stagnant situation is only going to result in another great name being tarnished, and that helps absolutely no one.
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