After such an impressive campaign last season it was all looking very promising for West Ham as they said goodbye to life at Upton Park and looked forward to moving into what is now called London Stadium. With a fancy new stadium to call home, The Hammers were then looking for a fancy new striker to go with it.
Attempts to sign the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexandre Lacazette fell short and instead West Ham fans had to make do with on loan Juventus forward Simone Zaza. The Italian is probably more famous for his terrible penalty against Germany at Euro 2016 than he is for his goalscoring exploits, and it seems certain that Slaven Bilic will call time on his East London stint come January.
And with Zaza’s departure on the cards, Bilic will now look to get in a new face not just to act as a replacement, but to try and steer his side away from the drop zone. With the East London outfit sitting in 17th and averaging just a goal a game, it’s fair to say they need to refresh their forward ranks in the New Year.
Let’s now look at three potential transfer targets..
Daniel Sturridge
Sturridge’s contribution this season has been reduced in the main to that of the EFL Cup. No matter what the 27-year-old seems to do, he just can’t seem to edge his way into Jurgen Klopp’s first XI plans.
And with a record of zero goals in eight Premier League appearances, it’s not hard to see why. In the 13 months since Klopp took charge of Liverpool it’s fair to say that these two haven’t had the best of a working relationship, and the question now is whether their relationship is fractured beyond repair.
What makes for interesting reading is that in the 12 Premier League seasons that Sturridge has featured in, he has only made more than 20 appearances in two of them. After already plying his trade for Manchester City and Chelsea, he has never quite made a first team berth his own and it once again is the case at Anfield.
If he were to move to West Ham then there is no question of whether or not he would start, the hard sell now for Slaven Bilic would be whether the carrot of first team football is enough to tempt Sturridge to London Stadium.
Troy Deeney
The 28-year-old was rumoured to be of interest to a handful of Premier League clubs in the summer, all of which were dismissed. But could an offer of £30m be enough to tempt Deeney away from Vicarage Road.
After an impressive debut Premier League season, in which Deeney was ever present for Watford, he registered 13 goals and although the rate of goals hasn’t been quite at the same level so far this season, there is no doubting the contribution that he has once again given to The Hornets.
West Ham will know all too well what Deeney is capable of after he scored against them in Watford’s 4-2 win earlier this season. That performance would have definitely put him on Slaven Bilic’s radar and with West Ham still with unused funds from the summer, there is every possibility they will test Watford’s mettle with a bid in the New Year.
Mauro Icardi
This may be the longest shot of the three targets but life in Milan is not going too well for Mauro Icardi at present and West Ham could very well offer him the perfect escape route out of Italy, should he decide to cut his ties with Internazionale.
Icardi has fallen foul of the club’s ultras after comments made in his autobiography and as a general rule, once you lose the support of the ultras, then you are usually on borrowed time, no matter how much talent you may have at your disposal.
West Ham were supposedly tracking the 23-year-old during the Summer but it was felt that a move was not a realistic possibility and they decided to look elsewhere but, with Icardi’s situation seemingly now changed, it looks as if they could be prepared to enter a bid for the Italian international.
He may have fallen foul of the fans but he is in red hot scoring form after bagging 10 goals in just 12 Serie A appearances. If a move to West Ham was to facilitate then they would have to be prepared to break the club record transfer fee of £20.5m they paid for Andre Ayew in the summer.
If they can secure the signature of Icardi, then it would undoubtedly be one of the signings of the January transfer window.
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