Max Hahn, West Ham United’s Head of Technical Recruitment & Analysis, will have felt some sense of vindication as Swansea City striker Zan Vipotnik took an almighty stride towards the Championship’s Golden Boot on Easter Monday.
Hammers News were told in December that Hahn had recommended Vipotnik to West Ham ahead of the January transfer window.
The Premier League survival-battlers would instead spend £40 million on Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe.
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West Ham United's Pablo after missing the crucial penalty during the Emirates FA Cup Quarter Final match between West Ham United and Leeds United on April 5, 2026 in London, England.
Given how their respective weekends turned out – Pablo missed a penalty against Leeds in the FA Cup quarter-finals while Castellanos did everything but score – one wonders if West Ham United would have been better off devoting their winter budget to bringing Zan Vipotnik to the London Stadium instead.
West Ham United maybe should have signed Swansea’s Zan Vipotnik
Not only did Vipotnik score three times across the Easter double-header – a trio of coolly-taken penalties against Sheffield United and Middlesbrough – the Slovenian hotshot also took his tally to 20 for the season.
He is the first player in the Championship to reach that marker. And hey, for all those saying ‘well, it was only a couple of penalties’, tell that to Pablo.
Zan Vipotnik celebrates during Swansea City v Wrexham AFC - Sky Bet Championship
Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images
Vipotnik has shattered the 20-goal barrier despite racking up an ‘expected goals’ tally of just eleven. Vipotnik has always been an ‘exceptional’ finisher, and a perennial overperformer of his XG numbers.
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Per Sky Sports, in 2022/23, Vipotnik was the meat in an Erling Haaland/Goncalo Ramos sandwich. He was recorded as the second-best finisher amongst all European-based strikers under the age of 23, between the Man City talisman and Benfica’s future-PSG goal-getter.
Now 24, he continues to establish himself as a finisher worthy of a chance at the top level.
Vipotnik eyes the Championship Golden Boot award
The word is that the aforementioned Max Hahn, a former Werder Bremen scout who arrived on Tim Steidten’s watch in 2024, also played a key role in bringing El Hadji Malick Diouf and Mateus Fernandes to West Ham.
Given how they settled into East London life, and considering that Pablo and Castellanos are starting to feel more and more like a £40 million-plus misstep, Hahn’s word should carry plenty of weight during the summer window.
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Zan Vipotnik signed a new contract at Swansea recently. But the feeling is that, with Vitor Matos’ side equidistant between the relegation zone and the play-offs with five matches remaining, that extension was more to protect their star striker’s value than to cement his future beyond the summer window.
“It’s nice to help the team with the goal,” Vipotnik said after Swansea dealt a blow to Middlesbrough’s automatic promotion prospects with a 2-2 draw in South Wales.
“If I’m honest, I would say the Golden Boot is on my mind, but I know how the league is. There’s not many games left to go and anything can change. I just want to keep taking it game by game and keep helping the team.”
Should he claim the award – currently four goals ahead of Coventry’s Haji Wright – Vipotnik will join the likes of Ivan Toney, Aleksandr Mitrovic, Chris Wood, Rickie Lambert and Teemu Pukki in the Championship history books.
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