Erling Haaland, Goncalo Ramos and Victor Osimhen is good company for any young centre-forward to keep. Now, with West Ham United interested, a Premier League switch could hand this talented number nine the chance to show he belongs among the elite.
It was during the 2022/23 season when a man labelled the ‘Slovenian Haaland’ by some back in his Eastern European homeland really hit his stride.
Two years later, while Hammers News have been told that David Sullivan has reservations about signing Championship talent, it appears that West Ham United may be willing to make an exception for Swansea sharpshooter Zan Vipotnik.
Max Hahn joined West Ham’s staff back in 2024, as the club’s Head of Technical Recruitment and Analysis under Tim Steidten.
Now, Hammers News can confirm that Hahn has recommended Swansea’s Vipotnik ahead of the January transfer window. He is Hahn’s pick.
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West Ham United insiders KUMB reported the same. Give Me Sport have since claimed that an enquiry has come the way of the North Wales outfit, although a pair of unnamed Serie A clubs are further down the line than West Ham at this stage.
West Ham United target Zan Vipotnik rivalled Erling Haaland back in 2023
Vipotnik, leading the line for a Swansea side sitting 19th in the second-tier, obviously has a long way to go if he is to be mentioned in the same sentence as Haaland, Osimhen and Ramos again.
According to a survey conducted at the end of the 2022/23 season, per Sky Sports, Vipotnik was ranked as the second-best ‘finisher’ amongst all European-based strikers under the age of 23. The metric was calculated from their ‘expected goals’ tally, and also their goals per 90 minutes average.
Only Haaland, scorer of a staggering 52 goals in 53 games that term, ranked higher than a man who burst onto the scene in Slovenia with an impressive 23 for NK Maribor. Ramos, who would soon leave Benfica for PSG in a £70 million deal, would come in third, with Osimhen also trailing.
Flash forward to the present day, Haaland, Ramos and Osimhen are playing Champions League football while Vipotnik is in the Championship. That could change, though, with West Ham just one of a number of clubs ready and waiting to offer the 23-year-old the chance to step up.
Swansea City star Vipotnik is an ‘expected goals’ machine
Following a solid but unspectacular first season at Swansea, Vipotnik has exploded out of the blocks this term.
Per FotMob, he has eight goals from an XG of just 3.68. And that is without mentioning a further two goals from an XG of 0.15 in the EFL Cup.
Simply put, he has scored twice as many Championship goals than he should realistically have been expected to, given the quality of the chances which have come his way. You can see why he joined Haaland on the podium, then.
Vipotnik’s razor-sharp ball-striking from all angles and various distances means he can turn half-chances into goalscoring opportunities.
See, for instance, his thumping drive against Norwich City. He followed that up with another fierce hit from even further out that day. In a thrilling 3-2 defeat by West Brom, meanwhile, Vipotnik opened the scoring after just 11 seconds with a sumptuous lob over a stranded goalkeeper.
“[Vipotnik] was exceptional. They’re high level goals, and you’ve seen a player that’s really enjoying his football,” former Swansea coach Alan Sheehan said after that thumping Norwich brace in October.
“There are things that we want more of and for him to be relentless within that. But in terms of scoring goals, he gave two moments of real quality and that clinical edge [is what] we have been missing in certain games.”
Niclas Fullkrug is Milan-bound! ✈️ 🇮🇹
What deal would you have been happy with? And who should replace him?
Would West Ham be the right club for the ‘Slovenian Haaland’?
Vipotnik is something of an old-school, throwback of a centre-forward. He is not someone who tends to press ferociously or drop back to help out the defence. He is not the quickest, and has recorded only one assist in 67 Swansea appearances. But give him a glimpse of goal and he usually finds the target.
Whether he would succeed at West Ham, then, is likely to depend on how many opportunities his teammates can realistically create for him. Concerningly, the Hammers rank 15th for ‘chances created’ this term with only 117.
They rank 19th, above only Wolves, when it comes to ‘big chances created’.
But, on the other hand, no team in the Championship has created fewer ‘big chances’ than Swansea, and the ‘Viper’ has still produced plenty of venom.
Whether a move to West Ham could be the making of Vipotnik, or whether he would join the Milan-bound Niclas Fullkrug in long list of failed number nines, is up for debate. What cannot be disputed, though, is that there is an elite finisher waiting to explode in North Wales.
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