It has recently been reported that West Ham have agreed a fee to sign Colombian striker, Duvan Zapata. This news shocked everyone, as it seemed as though it had been pulled out of a hat. Nobody knows who he is, so I have tried to find out some information on Zapata.
He is currently 22 years old and plays for Estudiantes in the Argentinian league. Zapata is also 6 ft 2 inches. We can all now see why Allardyce would be interested in a player such as Zapata. He has represented his country at the U20s level and has scored 1 goal in 5 games.
For Estudiantes, he has scored 14 goals in 30 games so he basically averaging a goal every other game. The fee that was supposedly agreed between the two clubs was £6.7m, which seems like a hefty amount for a player that is unheard of. Nobody knew what to make of the news when it first broke out. However, there hasn’t been any news on it since.
A problem that West Ham may encounter with this deal is some work permit issues. It has been known on a few occasions that English clubs have found it hard to get work permits for players who play in the South American leagues. One of the most well known was when Falcao was offered to a number of English clubs but none of them could get him a work permit.
After looking through a lot of twitter discussions, it seems as though a lot of people from Argentina highly rate Zapata. These would be the best people to ask what Zapata is like as they see him play week in week out. But, is Zapata just a good player out there compared to the others because other players in Argentina aren’t very good.
I personally can’t see this deal happening so I wouldn’t look too much into it if I were you. Hopefully we will sign other players with more experience and better known.