The task now falls upon Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe to prove that West Ham United’s striker curse can indeed be broken.
Nuno Espirito Santo was impressed by what he saw from the two January signings as they made their Premier League debuts on Tuesday night.
While lacking a real cutting edge, Taty Castellanos worked prodigiously from the front. One sliding challenge on Nottingham Forest defender Nikola Milenkovic drew a rousing reception from an otherwise miserable home crowd. Cult hero status, you feel, beckons.
Pablo created one of West Ham United’s best openings off the bench, meanwhile, with a clever pass in behind for Kyle Walker-Peters.
Tell us your FAVOURITE of these former Hammers, and why? ⚒️
Which one would best suit Nuno's team now?
With their Premier League status hanging by a thread, Sunday’s FA Cup clash with London neighbours Queens Park Rangers feels like a good chance for Castellanos and Pablo to get off the mark. Find the net once, and they will have already overtaken the non-existent tallies of Benni McCarthy, Simone Zaza, Albian Ajeti, Mido, Marouane Chamakh and Jordan Hugill.
Though the Hammers will never know whether Burak Yilmaz, the legendary Turkish forward, would have thrived where so many failed in the 2010s.
Turkey icon Burak Yilmaz turned down West Ham United for China
Speaking to Tiktakspor this week, the former Trabzonspor, Galatasaray and Lille striker opened up on why a purported move to East London failed to materialise during the Slaven Bilic era.
According to the Daily Mirror, West Ham had a bid of £3.5 million rejected by Galatasaray in the summer of 2015. They were keen on Yilmaz again a year later, only to be blown out of the water by a head-spinning offer from the then-minted Chinese Super League.
“So, we’re sitting there with the Chinese guys,” recalls Yilmaz, who eventually joined Beijing Guoan for around £7 million, plus a couple of extra million in wages.
“I said to the Chinese President, ‘Look, thank you, but I’m going to go to West Ham [United].’ He says, ‘No way, man! I already told the State about you. I can’t go back without signing you.'”
Beijing Guoan were state-owned at the time, and therefore a key part of president Xi Jinping’s desire to turn China into a footballing superpower.
“I tried to make excuses: ‘I can’t come, my wife is pregnant,’ and so on,” says Yilmaz, who clearly had his heart set on the Hammers until money talked. “Finally, the president says, ‘Just give me a number [in terms of what you want in wages]. These guys are waiting for the price. Are you going to tell me the number now or what?’
“So, I told him two [million euros], thinking that was plenty. I said two, and right away he says ‘five’!
“I immediately grabbed his hand and said, ‘OK, brother! Deal!’ I told him, ‘These are the terms, just wait a bit, I’m going to go say thanks to West Ham and I’m coming back!’
“And that is exactly how the story goes. That’s how I got transferred [from Galatasaray to Beijing].”
Taty Castellanos showed promise but his stats were underwhelming…🤐
What did YOU make of his debut?
Taty Castellanos and Pablo will hope to emulate Marko Arnautovic
Yilmaz would last only one year in China. He would later become one of those classic late-blooming centre-forwards who hit another level following his 30th birthday, a la Athletic Bilbao legend Aritz Aduriz, Leicester icon Jamie Vardy and Serie A hotshot Antonio di Natale.
Yilmaz famously fired Lille to the Ligue 1 title in 2021 at the expense of Paris Saint-Germain.
West Ham, at least, would end up landing the sort of talismanic centre-forward they were looking for in the shape of Marko Arnautovic, although he came too late to save Bilic’s tenure.
On the Ironcast podcast this week, former assistant coach Stuart Pearce reflected fondly on Arnautovic’s two-year spell in claret and blue, while admitting he was left with a very different impression of the controversy-courting Austrian.
“I had a perception, let’s just say, when I came in here the first time to coach with David Moyes, I had a perception of what Marko Arnautovic was like. I thought to myself, ‘The first thing I’ve got to do when I walk through the door is talk to him and get to know Marko’.
“I sat him down, and the perception I had of him as a player compared to once I got to know him was so different. You know, this is a young man who could speak seven languages. You sit and talk to him, and those preconceived ideas of what you think someone is like [change]. It’s not until you sit down with them and really get to know them that you can understand how to motivate them and that type of thing.
“At Stoke, in the main, he was playing on the flank. He played as a centre-forward [with us]. And with Marko, you’ve got to understand him a little bit. This is where Dave was so good as a manager.
“He moved his position into a spot where we needed a centre-forward at the time. And from there, I think he empowered Marko to make him feel as if he was the top dog and the top man, and I think he thrived in that environment. You know what it’s like yourself; you think the manager’s got confidence in you.
“Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but he’s one of the few players, when Dave left for the first time, that actually rang Dave up and said, ‘Thanks for what you’ve done’.”
Receive a digest of our best West Ham content each week direct to your mailbox
