Franculino Djú might not be a household name yet, but West Ham United would be wise to change that — and fast. The Hammers have been heavily linked with a move for the forward who has been scoring a goal per game as an old fashioned ‘fox in the box’.
The Midtjylland striker is tearing up European football and has quickly become one of the most in-demand young forwards on the continent. A graduate of the Benfica academy, Djú has exploded into life in the Danish Superliga and Europa League, scoring 18 goals already this season across all competitions — putting him in elite company alongside Mbappé, Haaland and Harry Kane.
At just 21 years old, the Guinean international who was educated at Benfica is already being watched by some of Europe’s biggest clubs. But if West Ham are serious about climbing out of trouble, we need to act decisively and pull out all the stops to sign him in January. With players like this, you only ever get one chance to sign them and this could be it for the Hammers.
The fox in the box we’ve been crying out for
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Djú is everything West Ham are missing in the as a central striker — ruthless, instinctive, selfish in all the right ways. Watching his goals, it’s clear: this is a throwback forward. A pure finisher, always on the move, sniffing out space in the box and pulling the trigger early. He’s not interested in build-up play — he wants goals, and lots of them. In many respects he has a touch of the Chicharito’s about him but is slightly more physical with a tendency to shoot early like Jermain Defoe.
On the face of it, he might not look like the ideal type of striker Nuno Espirito Santo would use but I suspect he’d thrive on the delivery from Malick Diouf’s early crossing. Most importantly, Dju is a goalscorer and West Ham only really have Jarrod Bowen and [Tomas Soucek](https://www.claretandhugh.info/tomas-soucek-bio/) as proven Premier League match winners.
Nuno will need to fix his defence and I suspect he will. But if the Irons gaffer wants guaranteed goals, Franculino could be the very man for the job.