West Ham's striking problems point to a chronic lack of planning

As West Ham fans trudge down the road past what used to be Upton Park, they likely wish they had never left. The Hammers may now inhabit the shiny Olympic Stadium in Stratford, but few things have gone right since the club moved just over three and a half miles west.

“Rebranding ourselves was really important with our stadium,” West Ham’s vice-chair, Karren Brady told the Guardian in October. “We’re in the London Stadium. We added the word London to our crest because we felt it had real global appeal. Nobody else does it. We are in the heart of London, in the foothills of the financial sector.”

Brady’s words fell on deaf ears with supporters. For all the talk of a stadium migration, the current season was important for West Ham on the field. Slaven Bilic’s first season was littered with positives including Dimitri Payet and the club’s highest Premier League finish since 1999. Narrowly missing out on the top four, and with it Champions League football, West Ham’s disappointment had not diluted their ambition.

In rolled the new players to supplement Payet’s brilliance. Gokhan Tore, Sofiane Feghouli, Andre Ayew and Havard Nordtveit all held a claret and blue scarf aloft and talked about the positive direction the club were going in. “This team has something special,” Nordtveit said at his unveiling. “A spirit in the team that I can fit into. I will work hard and hopefully I can get some good moments at this club.”

Yet still something was missing — a star centre forward. Once again, ambition dripped from the club’s public statements with co-chairman David Sullivan telling Sky Sports news in May, “We put in a bid today for €30m for a player and other bids will be going in. We are going to make a £20m or £25m bid for a player in England this week. So whatever happens, we’ll bring a top striker in.”

By the end of the summer Jonathan Calleri and Simone Zaza had arrived from Deportivo Maldonado and Juventus respectively. Both loan signings, Zaza had a future obligation that totalled £25million, but did little in just less than a dozen appearances to suggest that was a wise investment. The Italian has already moved on, Calleri is likely to follow. Signed as one of the most exciting prospects in South America, Calleri has had little opportunity to show his quality in what has largely been a struggling West Ham team.

The Hammers faltering first half of the season has understandably left fans frustrated. However, their club’s attempted business in January appears equally stress inducing. “Every transfer window gets harder and harder each year but the January window is far more challenging than the summer window, simply because it is shorter and very few players of real quality are available,” David Sullivan told Sky Sports at Christmas.

First there was a £6million bid for Jermain Defoe, before Hull City received half that figure for Robert Snodgrass. Both were understandably knocked back. Sullivan and Gold are not new to the idea of new year reinforcements. Demba Ba, Ricardo Vaz Te and Christophe Dugarry were all signed in January, and all provided a much needed boost, if only in the short-term.

However, if West Ham’s search for a striker did not seem scatter-gun before, their brief pursuit of Celtic’s Moussa Dembele gave weight to the notion. Bidding £20million for the French forward, any potential deal would likely reflect poorly on the club’s decision makers. Dembele was playing at nearby Fulham last season but did not do enough to entice West Ham into a bid, with the 20-year-old eventually moving to Scotland on a free transfer.

Quickly ending their pursuit of the Frenchman, it would seem the club have instead set their heart on Brentford’s Scott Hogan.

Once of Stocksbridge Park Steels — the same club that Jamie Vardy got his start at — Hogan exploded onto the Football League at Rochdale before continuing his fine form in front of goal with Brentford. The Bees are understandably reluctant to sell their star man, and have knocked back bids ranging from £7.5million to £10.5million. It would seem the Bees will demand in excess of £15million for Hogan, although whether he is the right man for the Hammers remains to be seen.

The club’s approach to signing a striker can best be described as ill-prepared, and yet surprisingly the position has been a troubling one for some time now. Since David Gold & Sullivan took over West Ham in January 2010, they’ve signed 32 strikers. Between them, they have contributed 143 goals in 709 games.

Signing Hogan may help redress the balance slightly, even if he is not the big name signing promised in the summer. Talk of Alexandre Lacazette and Carlos Bacca dominated West Ham’s summer, but both pursuits hit sizable road blocks. The pair were believed to want Champions League football, which in turn left the Hammers in a catch-22 situation. The club wanted to sign players good enough to take them into the top four, but were unable to do so because those same players wanted Champions League football first.

Currently in 13th place, the Hammers are light years from making Europe this season. Even then, they have seen back-to-back Europa League campaigns ended by Romanian side Astra Giurgiu. The Hammers remain a club with lofty ambitions, however their attempts to sign a striker mirror their attempts to make the Champions League, with neither boasting a meticulous or considered plan of action.