The Athletic’s West Ham correspondent Roshane Thomas shared with the U Irons podcast what Newcastle defender Ciaran Clark told him about playing against Sebastien Haller.
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The 26-year-old Hammers hitman moved to the London Stadium from Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer of 2019 for around £45 million (BBC).
The 6ft 3in Frenchman hasn’t lived up to expectations at West Ham as yet, however.
Haller has scored just 12 goals in 42 games in all competitions for the Hammers.
He currently finds him as a second choice striker with David Moyes preferring to start Michail Antonio through the middle.
The West Ham boss hasn’t always set his team up to play to Haller’s strengths. That’s for sure. But equally, the Frenchman needs to work harder and put himself about more.
If the former Eintracht Frankfurt man is to have any kind of future at the London Stadium, he needs to make more of a nuisance of himself in general for opposing defenders.
And Roshane Thomas alluded to that fact.
The Athletic’s West Ham correspondent shared with the U Irons podcast what Newcastle defender Ciaran Clarke told him about what it’s like to play against Haller:
“I remember last season in the 3-2 defeat against Newcastle and I asked Ciaran Clark what was it like defending against Haller. He said, ‘it was alright really. I didn’t have much of a problem’.”
That just sums the Frenchman up in a nutshell. He quite simply needs to do more.
Chances will not just fall to Haller. He needs to create the openings himself.
Let’s not write the Frenchman off just yet.
But if the 26-year-old is to succeed, he needs to work the opposition far more than he has been doing over the past 16 months or so.
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