West Ham United continue to make moves as they try to improve on their seventh place finish in the Barclays Premier League. They’re trying hard to keep both manager Slaven Bilic and star Frenchman Dimitri Payet, but if they manage to keep those two, they’ll be threatening for a coveted top four spot in the UEFA Champions League.
According to a report, The Hammers have come to an agreement with AC Milan to sign Carlos Bacca for 30 million Euros. The Colombian’s agent will meet with West Ham sometime over the next week to close the deal.
Strikers need to be offloaded
If this deal were to come to fruition, The Hammers are going to need to offload some strikers either via loan or permanent transfer. Last season, they had six strikers on the team. Andy Carroll, Mauro Zarate, Enner Valencia, Diafra Sakho, Nikica Jelavic and Emmanuel Emenike.
Emenike was on loan and has since returned to Fenerbahce. The other two strikers which have left are Zarate and Jelavic. The Argentine is now at Fiorentina while the Croatian is in China. West Ham have decided to bring in two more strikers this offseason, outside of Bacca, in Toni Martinez and Domingos Quina from Valencia and Chelsea respectively, but they do not look to be threats for first-team football for the time being.
Bacca’s terrific strike rate
No matter where he has played, Bacca has been able to find the back of the net consistently. His worst output, albeit a small sample size, was three goals in 10 appearances at Club Brugge in his first season there. He then followed that up though 28 goals in 44 appearances for the Belgian side which earned him a move to Sevilla.
After 34 goals in 72 games with Sevilla, which also saw him be a part of two Europa League titles, the Colombian moved to Milan. With the Rossoneri, he fired 18 goals in 38 games.