The news about West Ham striker and summer signing Niclas Füllkrug being sidelined with injury for an extended period has been worsened by the impressive form of Jhon Duran.
Currently, we have two contrasting examples of the Hammers’ main summer striker targets. While Füllkrug has yet to make a Premier League start for the Irons, the forward we didn’t manage to sign has actually scored more goals at the London Stadium than the player we did sign.
However, you might wish to console yourself with the fact that even if West Ham had signed Duran from Aston Villa, we’d probably have ended up with a very different version of him. Given West Ham’s poor track record and bad luck with signing strikers, it’s highly likely that Duran would still be awaiting his first goal for the Hammers.
It would be very much the West Ham Way to spend £40 million on a forward, only to see him disappear to play for Colombia and return injured. So, while I look upon Duran’s recent form with green-eyed envy in my heart, I am fully aware that the Hammers would have gotten a very different player. . . an alternative parallel universe version if you like?
It’s likely that the 20-year-old would be playing second fiddle to Michail Antonio, if he were lucky, or possibly being turned into a defensive left winger. We might have heard that he wasn’t quite ready physically for Premier League action, awaiting a stint in the U21s like Luis Guilherme.
The January transfer window would undoubtedly bring a £15 million transfer to Real Betis, at which point he’d win the Conference League, look like the best striker in Europe, and then join Real Madrid for £150 million.
So try not to be too jealous or regretful when viewing Jhon Duran; it would have all been very different at West Ham.
For the easily upset: The above is a bit of fiction and not to be taken seriously, gallows humour is a necessary trait at West Ham.