So far this season most our strikers have failed to find the net. This is poor to say the least as these are the people that the team and fans look for when they need goals. Our top scorer this season has been our captain Kevin Nolan with 4 goals. He is clearly trying to lead by example but his shooting boots have clearly not been worn by the strikers yet. In the striking department we have Carlton Cole, Ricardo Vaz Te, Modibo Maiga and Andy Carroll.
The only striker to have scored this season is Maiga against Southampton and Wigan. The Southampton game finished 4-1 with Modibo scoring the last goal. It was a well taken goal to be fair from outside of the box. He time his shot well also as he had two defenders in front of him. The game against Wigan finished as a 4-1 loss to West Ham knocking them out of the Capital One Cup. Maiga scored the first goal in this game to help West Ham go one nil up in this match. From then on things only got worse as another 4 goals were knocked past goalkeeper Stephen Henderson. The Hammers did field a weaker team however and I do think that it was wise to do that now you look at our league position.
The next striker on my hitlist is Ricardo Vaz Te. Vaz Te is currently out injured and is not expected back for another few weeks thanks to a dislocated shoulder. Ricardo was our star man last season scoring crucial goals helping our promotion push. He proved to be a shrewd signing by Big Sam at the cost of 500k from Barnsley. He scored so many goals when he joined us in January that he very nearly caught Carlton Cole up in the goal-scoring tables. He also showed us that had a lot of skill something that West Ham had been missing for quite some time, often beating players with his tricks. However this season he has failed to make an impact, but this could also be down to the fact that he has been pushed out the right midfield role. Another factor is that he could be out of his depth in this league, with a failed spell with Bolton last time round.
Carlton Cole has also been one of those players that has failed to do anything this season. He has also been pushed out of the team because of loan signing Andy Carroll. Cole also has many off days, but on his day can be unplayable, something we saw in the Play-Off Final. However he has many more bad days than good. Andy Carroll has already made his way into many West Ham supporters hearts with impressive performances so far this season. Notabably on his debut against Fulham where he bought other players into the play when controlling the ball down from the air. Towards the end of last season Andy did start to score goals for Liverpool and also scored in the Euros, so was expected to open his scoring account in the new season pretty early. Sadly that hasn’t happened yet but it is only a matter of time and I believe he could be an important signing this season.
We do need these strikers to start taking their chances sooner rather than later in this campaign, and especially in the next couple of months. This is because we will be facing the top teams such as Man City, Man United, Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool. These will all be crucial games for us and could possibly make or break us so it essential for our front men to start finding their shooting boots.