When a footballer is described as an ‘enigma’, the word used this week to sum up one-time West Ham United and Premier League prospect Sead Haksabanovic, that usually means one thing.
‘Enigma’ is often a somewhat polite way of pointing out that consistency remains pretty elusive.
In this case, a reflection that Sead Haksabanovic’s potential, having celebrated his 26th birthday in May, in creeping towards ‘unfulfilled’ territory.
To think, when Haksabanovic was sold back in 2020, many West Ham fans protested his switch to Sweden with IFK Norrköping. Shades of that contentious sale of Grady Diangana to West Brom.
A teenage Haksabanovic had scored five goals while providing a further five assists in just 11 appearances on loan at the Allsvenskan outfit, after all. And the feeling among some London Stadium matchgoers was that a chance in the first-team would have been a fitting reward.
Shock reports even suggested, at the time, that Arsenal and Manchester United had taken notice of a forward whose £2.7 million switch to West Ham United resulted in nothing more than two brief appearances in the senior squad.
“I’m just focused on playing well but, yes, a first-team spot is of course what I am hoping to achieve,” Haksabanovic said after making his West Ham debut in a 3-0 beating of Bolton Wanderers in a 2017 EFL Cup clash.
“Hopefully that will come soon.”
That, however, would represent 50 per cent of his first-team appearances in a claret and blue shirt.
Former West Ham United prospect Sead Haksabanovic is struggling in Sweden with Malmo
Another of the youngsters on the West Ham team sheet that day was none other than Declan Rice.
Eight years on, while Rice is considered ‘one of the best in the world’ these days – a £105 million England stalwart with two iconic Champions League free-kicks against Real Madrid under his belt – Haksabanovic remains, to paraphrase Swedish publication Aftonbladet, a puzzle yet to be solved.
How differently might Haksabanovic’s career have turned out if not the Russian invasion of Ukraine? His time at Rubin Kazan was only just beginning when he departed after a grand total of 20 matches.
Haksabanovic was then unfortunate enough to find himself stuck behind the wonderful Jota at Celtic before a forgettable loan spell with Stoke City in England’s second tier yielded a single goal from 21 appearances.
That, though, is still a better return than the mercurial, often muted Montenegrin has managed as a Malmo player.
Seventeen matches into his career with the Swedish giants, Haksabanovic is still awaiting his first goal and also a maiden assist.
“Sead Haksabanovic remains a bit of an enigma,” Aftonbladet write, summing up the frustrations surrounding a winger whose undoubted natural ability continues to be undermined by a lack of tangible results.
“So much football talent but so little end product. ‘Haksa’ has the feel and ball control but not the speed.”
Haksabanovic has one goal in 47 games for Celtic, Stoke City and Malmo
After recovering from a groin injury which rendered him unavailable for the entirety of last season’s Europa League campaign, Haksabanovic’s struggles in the final third mirror those of Malmo as a whole.
The most successful team in Swedish football history sit fifth in the Allsvenskan table after just six wins in their first 13 matches of the 2025 season. Their tally of 19 goals is eight shy of league leaders Mjallby, and even falls behind Haksabanovic’s former employers Norrköping in tenth place.
“We have to take our chances,” the former Malaga man sighed in conversation with Fotbollskanalen following a penalty shoot-out defeat by Hacken which came on the back of 180 goalless minutes.
“We have good chances where we can score goals, so I think we should win before the game goes to penalties. What you can do is practice more, get the feeling into the finishing. It’s just more practice.
“I don’t know how the others feel, but I know that we don’t have the margins with us right now. That’s how it is sometimes.”
With the new campaign only a few weeks in, Malmo have plenty of time to fix a wasteful streak which threatens to wreck their pursuit of a 25th domestic title.
With one goal in his last 47 club appearances, however, a rotten streak which stretches back to 2023 for Sead Haksabanovic is proving far harder to snap.
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