How well prepared are West Ham United for the new Premier League season?
Well, Graham Potter will certainly take encouragement from his team’s performances during the Premier League Summer Series, beating both Everton and Bournemouth, their only defeat coming in the first game of their US tour against Manchester United.
The Hammers’ homecoming is on Saturday, welcoming LOSC Lille to the London Stadium, before the serious business begins at the Stadium of Light against Sunderland a week later.
However, supporters are certainly concerned about the make-up of this squad, given that Mohammed Kudus has been sold to fierce rivals Tottenham, with the arrivals of Callum Wilson, Kyle Walker-Peters and El Hadji Malick Diouf doing little to lift the mood.
Well, could that be about to change, as the Irons target a move to sign a “phenomenal” striker who has been compared to Erling Braut Håland?
West Ham's never-ending search for a striker
With Michail Antonio having been released, West Ham require a new starting centre-forward this season, even after the arrival of Wilson, who surely cannot be banked upon to remain fit, having seen just 458 minutes of action last season, scoring one goal.
Well, fair to say, they don’t have a great track record when it comes to signing strikers for big money, as the table below documents.
Evan Ferguson
2025
Loan
8
Zero
Niclas Füllkrug
2024
£27m
20
3
Danny Ings
2023
£15m
69
5
Gianluca Scamacca
2022
£30.5m
27
8
Sébastien Haller
2019
£45m
54
14
Albian Ajeti
2019
£8m
12
Zero
Javier Hernández
2018
£16m
63
17
Jordan Hugill
2018
£10m
3
Zero
Lucas Pérez
2018
£4m
19
6
Diafra Sakho
2016
£10m
71
24
Emmanuel Emenike
2016
Loan
16
2
As the table outlines, since Antonio’s arrival in 2015, no West Ham striker has scored more than 25 goals for the club, with a vast amount of money wasted on players who produced very little.
As they seek to change that, reports in Spain claim that West Ham are interested in signing Atlético Madrid striker Alexander Sørloth, with Brentford also mentioned as potential suitors.
They add that los Colchoneros would be open to offers for the Norwegian centre-forward, as they pursue Roma’s Artem Dovbyk, and that Sørloth could be available for as little as €25m (around £22m).
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So, could the 29-year-old soon swap the Spanish capital for East London?
How Alexander Sørloth would improve West Ham
Fair to say, Sørloth has had a strange career, only really becoming a regular goalscorer very recently, with sporadic scoring sprees in there too, as noted below.
2013/14
Rosenborg
7
1
2014/15
Bodø/Glimt
29
14
2015/16
Groningen
15
2
2016/17
Groningen
30
4
2017/18
Midtjylland
26
15
2017/18*
Crystal Palace
4
Zero
2018/19
Crystal Palace
16
1
2018/19*
Gent
22
5
2019/20
Trabzonspor
49
33
2020/21
RB Leipzig
37
6
2021/22
Real Sociedad
44
8
2022/23
Real Sociedad
46
16
2023/24
Villarreal
41
26
2024/25
Atlético Madrid
53
24
*moved in January
As the table outlines, Sørloth changes clubs very regularly, often enduring long periods without scoring very many goals, including making little impact during his time at Crystal Palace.
Up until recently, his career highlight came in the 2019/20 season, firing Trabzonspor to second in the Turkish Süper Lig and glory in the Türkiye Kupası, on target during the final victory over Alanyaspor at the Atatürk Olimpiyat Stadı, one of his 33 goals that season.
Sørloth has then found his feet again in Spain, scoring 26 goals for Villarreal, earning a £28m move to Atlético Madrid last summer, for whom he netted 24 times, on target every 78 minutes in La Liga.
Alexander Sørloth
Atlético Madrid
20
1.15
Patrik Schick
Bayer Leverkusen
21
1.12
Ousmane Dembélé
Paris Saint-Germain
21
1.09
Harry Kane
Bayern Munich
26
0.98
Kylian Mbappé
Real Madrid
31
0.96
Mika Biereth
Monaco
13
0.95
Mateo Retegui
Atalanta
25
0.94
Robert Lewandowski
Barcelona
27
0.91
Ayoze Pérez
Villarreal
19
0.87
Oihan Sancet
Athletic Club
15
0.83
Manager Diego Simeone described Sørloth’s form as “phenomenal”, while Domagoj Kostanjšak of Total Football Analysis notes that he ‘thrives on physical duels’, making him a classic target man centre-forward.
Meantime, Juan Fernández Valencia of Breaking the Lines agrees, praising his ‘exceptional ability to win aerial duels’, suggesting there were fears when he arrived at Atleti that he was simply a one-season wonder, but he very much alleviated those concerns in a Rojiblancos shirt.
Should Sørloth return to the Premier League, one player he’ll know very well is Håland, given that the duo have started all four of Norway’s World Cup qualifiers in 2025 up front together, firing their country to four wins out of four.
Håland has found the net during all four of these victories, with Sørloth netting in each of the first three, including a famous 3-0 demolition of Italy, their main rivals for top spot in Group I, in Oslo back in June.
As noted by Stuart James of The Athletic, national team manager Ståle Solbakken faces a real challenge getting both centre-forwards in the same line-up, given their physical and stylistic similarities; both are tall and physically imposing, but have excellent movement and thrive when able to burst in-behind.
That likeness has also been picked up on by FBref, who note that Håland is one of the most statistically similar strikers to Sørloth among those in their position across Europe’s top five leagues.
Interestingly, the Atleti star ranks in the top 1% for non-penalty goals per 90, thus actually placing him ahead of the prolific Manchester City talisman, who ranks in the top 6% in that regard.
Sørloth certainly would not face a similar issue should he move to West Ham, as he would instantaneously become the main man through the middle of the attack, so could the Norwegian be the player to break the Hammers’ striker curse?
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