West Ham have had loads of failures up entrance over time, however there’s good purpose to hope their newest signing can succeed within the Premier League.
We’ve been right here earlier than.
This isn’t the primary time West Ham will head right into a Premier League season hoping that they’ve lastly discovered an answer to their ongoing issues within the centre-forward place.
Niclas Füllkrug has arrived for a price of £27 million from Borussia Dortmund, which isn’t an enormous amount of cash for a participant who has scored pretty constantly within the Bundesliga for the final two seasons, performed properly within the Champions League remaining final season and has simply acquired again from an honest displaying as an affect sub for a powerful Germany facet at Euro 2024.
However West Ham followers could also be cautious about getting too excited.
They’ve signed loads of centre-forward flops in latest occasions. In the previous few years, they’ve wasted massive cash on Sébastien Haller and Gianluca Scamacca, and never lengthy earlier than that we noticed the likes of Jordan Hugill, Enner Valencia, Emmanuel Emenike and Simone Zaza, every signed to steer the road however every ended up failing. These gamers managed simply 21 targets between them in 129 Premier League appearances in West Ham colors.
It could be too quickly to name Danny Ings a flop, however his report to this point of three targets in 37 league video games suggests the 32-year-old is unlikely to offer the targets he was signed to attain.
The constant failure of nearly everybody who former supervisor David Moyes introduced in to play up high has meant Michail Antonio has largely remained first-choice in that place even if he hasn’t all the time been a centre-forward, isn’t a pure goalscorer (by no means scoring greater than 10 targets in a season), has struggled persistently with accidents and is now 34 years outdated.
Antonio was for a couple of years a really succesful striker; a superb hold-up ahead who did a sensational job of bringing others into the sport, ran the channels tirelessly and whose relentless work price gave defenders nightmares.
However he additionally all the time remained a restricted choice, whether or not that was by way of his goalscoring or his availability on account of harm issues. That has meant West Ham have continued to search for one thing higher, and final season huge ahead Jarrod Bowen began 16 Premier League video games by way of the center. He is an effective choice there, however when Bowen begins up entrance, West Ham lose one among their most harmful gamers from his finest place out huge.
Antonio’s limitations led to the latest signings of Haller and Scamacca, however neither labored out. Beneath the management of Julen Lopetegui, the hope is that West Ham may lastly have discovered their man in Füllkrug.
He arrives in London off the again of an honest season in entrance of purpose, scoring 12 targets in 27 Bundesliga begins, plus three extra in Dortmund’s run to the Champions League remaining.
As we noticed at Euro 2024, Füllkrug doesn’t want many alternatives or a lot time on the pitch to attain. He scores by way of moving into nice positions and scientific ending slightly than excessive shot quantity, with 20.7% of his pictures within the Bundesliga final season discovering the online, and 41.4% of his pictures heading in the right direction beating the goalkeeper. His two targets on the Euros got here from simply 161 minutes of motion and a complete of simply six pictures. It was very almost three from six, however he was unlucky to hit the put up with a close-range effort in the quarter-final defeat to Spain.
His output at this summer season’s event means he now has 13 targets in 21 worldwide appearances, having scored at a fairly astonishing price of a purpose each 63.6 minutes – the most effective price of any participant to make at the very least 10 appearances for Germany within the nationwide staff’s historical past.
Füllkrug is a grasp of sharp actions contained in the penalty space to beat defenders to the ball and get into harmful goalscoring positions. Of his 53 pictures final season (largely for Dortmund however together with a couple of for Werder Bremen at first of the season earlier than he moved golf equipment), 38 (71.7%) have been first-time efforts – the second-highest proportion of all gamers to aim at the very least 50 pictures. The overwhelming majority of his pictures have been taken from contained in the penalty space (86.2%), too, and most of them have been taken from throughout the width of the purpose posts, each of which considerably improve his possibilities of scoring.
It isn’t like he’s solely centered on scoring, although. With eight assists within the Bundesliga final season, he was simply outdoors the league’s high 10 gamers, and stage with Harry Kane.
Füllkrug’s hold-up play is one other facet of his recreation for which he stands out, with a substantial amount of his work centered on bringing others into play. Within the Bundesliga in 2023-24, solely Wout Weghorst (16.7%) noticed the next proportion of his passes qualify as lay-offs than Füllkrug (14.2%), who ranked fourth general for lay-offs that discovered a teammate (59). His contact map additionally reveals he doesn’t solely get on the ball in areas the place he’ll threaten purpose.
West Ham’s new ahead can also be excellent within the air, profitable 80 aerial duels throughout the course of final season and scoring three headed targets. The last-gasp headed equaliser he scored for Germany in opposition to Switzerland at this summer season’s Euros sticks within the thoughts, whereas he additionally ranked fifth within the Bundesliga final season for flick-ons that discovered a teammate, with 21.
That aerial capability will certainly turn out to be useful with set-piece skilled James Ward-Prowse sharing the pitch with Füllkrug, and his hold-up play will assist to convey West Ham’s finest attackers in Bowen and Mohammed Kudus into play. In all, there’s lots for Lopetegui to work with together with his new centre-forward.
Nonetheless, the primary concern that has been raised about this transfer from West Ham’s perspective is the participant’s age. Füllkrug is 31, and shall be 35 by the point the four-year contract he has signed ends in 2028. West Ham may be fairly sure they received’t be getting any monetary return on their funding, and the concern is that they received’t get a lot day trip of him on the high stage.
He might simply take some time to adapt to the Premier League – if he does in any respect – and there’s each probability that he received’t be capable to play at that stage a lot previous the age of 33. So, is that this signing simply papering over the cracks?
West Ham will hope he can play on for a couple of extra years given he broke by way of so late, and hasn’t performed a substantial amount of elite soccer. When he performed for Germany in a pleasant in opposition to Oman in November 2022, Füllkrug turned the oldest outfielder to make his worldwide debut for Germany in 20 years, doing so at 29 years and 280 days. He solely has 157 top-flight appearances to his title.
There are a couple of dangers concerned on this deal, but when he can reproduce his Bundesliga and worldwide type, there’s each purpose to consider Füllkrug is usually a success. West Ham may lastly have a constant goalscoring quantity 9 on their fingers.
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