Alan Rzepa – @whuaIan

With six weeks of the transfer window left, West Ham finds themselves in a situation in which the only striker available is Marko Arnautović. And that is obviously worrying as we all know about Marko’s temper, slight injury record and his brother who’s trying to move him away from the club, to cash in a lovely signing-on fee.

It’s been known for a good while now that Manuel Pellegrini wants to bring in at least two new forwards, but that looks more challenging than everyone thought it would be.

It looks like the pursuit of Maxi Gomez hit a stumbling block. The 22-year-old wants to join Valencia, but the Spanish club looks like they aren’t ready to pay Celta Vigo’s £40m asking price and moved on to other targets, with Newcastle’s Ayoze Perez and Espanyol’s Borja Iglesias being on top of the list. It does sort-of leaves West Ham as front runners to the Uruguayan’s signature, but the saga might drag on until the deadline day.

But with recent managerial shake-ups, it looks like one name reappeared on Pellegrini’s aim.

With Rafael Benitez leaving Newcastle United and our old pal Slaven Bilic taking over West Brom, there is a very high chance of West Ham being able to snatch up Salomon Rondon for cheap.

Benitez, who brought the Venezuelan on loan, has left Newcastle after a disagreement regarding a new contract broke between him, and the club owner – Mike Ashley. Rondon himself expressed his feeling about Rafa both on twitter and in interviews during the 2018/19 season, and the absence of the Spanish coach might push him away from coming back to the north.

And the Hammers might take an advantage out of that situation, especially as the former player and manager, Bilic, had been appointed as a manager of Rondon’s current club, West Brom. The Croatian might be tempted to allow the ex-Zenit forward to leave for West Ham for a slightly reduced price, or as reported, a player+cash swap deal.

According to reports WBA already rejected the first approach from West Ham – £10m + Sam Byram and Jordan Hugill. Apparently, Bilic isn’t overly happy about Hugill, but an offer of £12m-£14m might be enough to seal the deal while also giving away two players that not figure in Pellegrini’s future plans.

The general question is “Is Rondon even worth it?”, and in my opinion yes, he is.

Although 29-years-old, he has loads of technical ability for a 6’2″ man. Great finisher inside the box with both feet as well as his head, but he also can strike from distance, preferably through a free kick. 11 goals and 7 assists in 32 Premier League games while playing for a struggling Newcastle side is a record that only proves his ability.

Rondon would definitely be an upgrade on Chicharito who looks set to leave if a right offer comes in, but is he keen to be a no.2, potentially no.3? Looks like we’ll find out about that very soon, with Pellegrini looking very avid to bring the forward to East London.