West Ham United fans will be waking up this morning thinking what might have been.
Things are looking pretty bleak at the London Stadium right now, with West Ham sitting in 15th spot in the Premier League table.
Julen Lopetegui is a man under real pressure right now, and the Hammers owners are said to be already lining up Edin Terzic as a potential replacement for the Spaniard.
The West Ham head coach hasn’t done much to excite the fans this season – on the face of it, his methods seem very similar to David Moyes’s.
In fairness to Lopetegui though, a lot of the problems he’s facing now were caused by Moyes.
For starters, the Spaniard had to sign nine new players in the summer to rebuild the tired, ageing and unbalanced squad Moyes had assembled.
And even that wasn’t enough – Lopetegui still needs three or four more new players to complete his squad.
There was a major oversight from Lopetegui in the summer, and from Moyes before him in 2023.
And overnight, the Hammers were handed a painful reminder of what might have been…
West Ham dealt painful double blow overnight
It’s all very much doom and gloom at the London Stadium right now.
Things haven’t gone to plan whatsoever, with many of the new signings struggling to settle into life at the club.
And unfortunately for us, things got worse overnight…
That’s because two strikers the Hammers easily could have signed both bagged goals in the Champions League last night.
Viktor Gyokeres scored for Sporting away at Sturm Graz, whilst Jhon Duran bagged for Aston Villa against Bologna.
The Hammers easily could have signed Duran in the summer – we just had to offer around £5 million more than the bid we had already made.
Aston Villa were said to be asking for north of £40 million for the striker, and West Ham should have just paid them what they wanted.
Duran would have been a transformative signing for us, and his continual brilliance for Villa just keeps on rubbing the salt into our wounds.
Meanwhile, David Moyes was handed the chance to bring Gyokeres to the London Stadium from Coventry City on a plate in the summer of 2023.
However, he joined Sporting in the end for around £20 million (Daily Mail), and the rest is history.
The Sweden international has bagged 56 goals and 20 assists in 63 games in all competitions for the Portuguese giants.
He would have been absolutely perfect for us, and I cannot understand for the life of me why Moyes didn’t bring him to the London Stadium.
Failing to sign Gyokeres was a terrible, terrible decision from the Scot.
So there you have it, West Ham’s striker problems could have easily been solved had Moyes and Lopetegui been more decisive over the past couple of summer transfer windows.
Instead, our wait for a proper centre-forward goes on.
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