West Ham United - a strikers' cemetery

What a good job for West Ham in the transfer window. The Hammers 'hammered it' (even thou there are two more days left) and used the money from the Declan Rice sale perfectly. After receiving 116 million euros from Arsenal, West Ham sporting sector brought in James Ward-Prowse from Southampton (34 million), Edson Alvarez (38 million) and Mohammed Kudus from Ajax (43 million), as well as former Gunner Konstantinos Mavropanos from Stuttgart (20 million). In total, it's way over 116 million, but they also sold Gianluca Scamacca for 25 million (Atalanta). So, the midfielder is tremendously strengthened with three great players, while the last line also got one player (Mavropanos), but what about the attack? With the sale of Scamacca, it's actually weakened.

On the current rooster, the Hammers have five forwards: youngster Divin Muaba, Said Benrahma Jarrod Bowen, Danny Ings and Michail Antonio. The problem is, there are only two typical strikers, 31 year old injury prone Ings and 33 years old Antonio. One day before the end of the transfer window, David Moyes has only these two veterans on his disposal. The latest reports suggest that West Ham are pushing to sign Youssef En-Nesyri from Seville, but that's not 100% sure. And it we look at the recent Gunners' transfer history concerning strikers, the story is so sad. In fact, since the current owner David Sullivan (and the late David Gold) took ownership of West Ham in 2010, over 50 strikers have passed through the club and over 350 million euros were spent looking for the perfect goalscorer. All in all, 52 players came and went and they scored a total of 374 goals (some of them failed to score a single shot). For the price of 350 million euros, it looks that West Ham owners paid their strikers almost a million euros per goal!

What a deal by West Ham! Kudus moves to London Stadium for 44,500,000

Lets start with the most famous (and recent) ones, not including the current ones: Danny Ings, Bowen and Antonio. Scamacca was brought for 35 and sold for 25 million after only one season, during which he scored eight goals. Nikola Vlašić came from CSKA Moscow for 40 million euros and scored one goal in two seasons before being sold to Torino for 14. million. Before them, Sebastien Haller was the obvious name. The Ivory Coast attacker was paid 49 million (club's record) and was sold to Ajax for just 22 million two seasons later, during which he scored 14 goals. There were other names, familiar to the Premier League fans like Demba Ba (7 goals, one season), Robbie Keane (2 goals, four months), Andy Carroll (34 goals, six seasons), Andre Ayew (12 goals, 1.5 seasons), Marouane Chamakh (0 goals, six months), John Carew (2 goals, one season), Marko Arnautovic (20 goals, two seasons), Andriy Yarmolenko (13 goals, four seasons) or Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez (17 goals, two seasons), but very few justified the invested money. To be fair, some of them did suffered injuries which prevented them to reach their full potential, and Andy Carroll certainly tops the list.

And what about the players who are hardily remembered even by the die-hard West Ham fans? They will probably remain only in the club books or in some odd pub football quizzes. West Ham brought in a total of 20 players which failed to score a single goal for the club. Out of those 20 footballers, 13 were brought on a loan or as free agents (but the club still paid loan fees, bonuses and wages) and for seven of them, the club paid 32.600.000 euros. And here we are at the end of August 31st and they still only have three of them...