Forget Zirkzee – West Ham should go in search of a different kind of striker in Januaryplaceholder image
Forget Zirkzee – West Ham should go in search of a different kind of striker in January | Manchester United via Getty Imag
West Ham may be in the market for Joshua Zirkzee - but would the Manchester United man really be the right signing?
It feels like West Ham United have been searching for a new striker for years now. For so long, the club have cycled through centre-forwards who have failed to offer long-term solutions up front, and their seemingly endless hunt for a number nine who can score the goals they are desperate for seems set to extend into another transfer window.
With Niclas Füllkrug looking likely to leave the London Stadium after an injury-stricken spell with the club, West Ham may be left with only the experienced but ageing Callum Wilson to lead the line unless they act – and it seems likely that they will.
A number of media reports have linked West Ham with a loan move for Joshua Zirkzee, and it should at least be a straightforward deal to engineer. Manchester United are keen to get rid of a player that has struggled desperately over the past 18 months and West Ham do not appear likely to have much competition. But is Zirkzee really the answer? Or are there are other forwards on the market who would fit the bill better?
Why West Ham should think twice before signing Joshua Zirkzee
On the face of it, signing Zirkzee on a straight loan deal for six months would be a relatively low-risk, high-reward deal. Should he continue to languish, as he has at Old Trafford, then at least it was only a temporary mistake. Should he rediscover the form that persuaded United to pay Bologna £36.5m, then they might have found the source of goals that they sorely need.
The problem is that West Ham’s success or failure at finding a goalscorer this winter may well be the difference between relegation and survival. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side enter the November international break inside the bottom three, and there is little room for error or experimentation.
It’s also debatable as to whether Zirkzee would be a good fit for Santo’s system even if he did get back to his Bolognese best. He thrived in Serie A in a tightly-knit three-man attack in which he played not as a traditional number nine (the position in which Erik Ten Hag tried to use him) but as a striker who would drop deep or find spaces in the channels to create room for those around him.
He may be tall and strong, but he is not a target man and not naturally suited to a direct style of football but to a compact, high-pressing system. He was a good fit at Bologna but Santo’s methods would generally require a much more old-fashioned sort of striker – in the Chris Wood mould – and Zirkzee may find it difficult to operate in the role West Ham might need him to. There is a world in which he finds success as a number ten in proximity to Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paquetá, perhaps, but signing him as a centre-forward would be risky.
And even when he was playing extremely well in Italy, he was not particularly prolific. He managed 12 goals in 37 appearances in the 2023/24 season, for instance, which is thoroughly respectable but hardly exceptional. The year before that he scored just twice, although he was not a regular starter at that stage.
West Ham need a more archetypal striker, and they need someone who can score goals immediately. In that light, signing someone more used to a supporting role, and a player who is also desperately out of form, would seem like a debatable choice at best.
The strikers West Ham should consider signing this January
Fortunately for West Ham, the centre-forward market may not be barren this January. They have been linked with one or two alternatives – and there are interesting attacking prospects likely to be available.
One of the more eyebrow-raising names to crop up in recent days is Ivan Toney, the former Brentford striker who is rumoured to be looking for a way back to the Premier League despite impressing for Saudi side Al-Ahli. Spurs and West Ham have both been linked with a bid and he would be ideal in many regards, not least because he is as proven a goalscorer at this level as the Hammers are likely to find.
A deal will be complicated, to say the least. Al-Ahli have no incentive to sell for anything less than a huge sum, meaning an initial loan would likely be the only option available, and Toney’s wages are enormous. For a club like West Ham, who don’t have deep pockets at the moment due to their profit and sustainability position, it may be too difficult to get a deal over the line.
Toney would be a brilliant signing, but should he prove to be unobtainable then there are alternatives, not least Saint-Étienne’s rising star Lucas Stassin. The 20-year-old Belgian scored 12 goals in 28 games for a team that were caught in a relegation battle last season and, having lost that battle, has started the 2025/26 season in fine fettle with four goals from just seven league starts.
Reports from France suggest that €30m (£26.5m) would be sufficient to get a deal done. It would be a gamble – Stassin is inexperienced and although not slight at 6’0”, does not have the kind of stature more normally associated with a traditional striker and is not especially impressive in the air. Like Zirkzee, there a questions over how he would fit the scheme, but at least he would be signed while on form.
Finally, one of West Ham’s alleged summer transfer targets may be available this winter. 21-year-old Franculino Djú is scoring goals at an incredible rate for Danish side FC Midtjylland and his side are largely resigned to losing him in the coming months.
Djú is unproven at the very top level (although he has had little difficulty scoring in Europe, as Celtic recently discovered) but is on fire, has plenty of physicality and has the traits West Ham desperately need – superb finishing and the knack for escaping his marker to get shots away.
He may also be cheaper than the alternatives. Recent stories suggest that a bid of around €20m (£17.5m) may be sufficient to sign the Bissau-Guinean striker, and based on his performances in the Superliga that would represent a potential bargain. The only downside is that West Ham haven’t been linked with Djú since the summer despite increasingly certainty in the media that one of his suitors will make a move in January. Everton seem to have skipped to the front of the queue – but that doesn’t mean that West Ham can’t barge their way back in.
All of those forwards would make more logical sense as winter signings than Zirkzee, for all the talent the Dutchman undeniably has. West Ham need goals now, and there are strikers out there scoring goals at the rate they require. It will be interesting to see whether they do indeed attempt to sign one of them.
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