Will Arnautovic injury push West Ham into striker deal?

West Ham thought they’d navigated the worst of the Arnautovic saga, only to get bitten hard last night. Will the injury to the Austrian cause the Irons to move in the transfer market?

So when your top striker demands to move, claps himself off the pitch then has the move rejected, you think that’s going to be the worst of it. So West Ham managed that issue, said they wouldn’t be forced into selling him for a cut price deal and he stayed. At least until the summer. But now we have another issue, a suspected broken foot.

It would be fair to say Arnautovic had a torrid time of it last night at Wolves, and because of his recent actions he was the focus of many chants and none were that kind to him. He was lazy and seemed more petulant than usual. However it’s his broken foot that is going to cause issues.

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With the Hammers already thin on the ground when it comes to attackers, with Hernandez looking to head to Valencia, Carroll just well out of form and Perez eyeing the exit door, so a serious injury here is bad. A broken foot means 2 months out for the Austrian and we could see the Hammers really struggling for players. So who could we get instead?

Well for me the thing to do is buy Maxi Gomez now. None of this wait until the summer, buy him now and take it out of the transfer kitty for the summer, because his price isn’t going to change. That way we have a striker that’s planning for the future rather than one who is a stop gap. However this is West Ham, don’t expect it to be that exciting.

I imagine we will see a player like Giroud or maybe Origi join the club on loan as the Hammers look to just settle themselves over this part of the season. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than relying on two strikers who are unlikely to be here at the start of next season.

I think the injury will push us to make more bold moves, but it’s very late in the day now. Can the Hammers rescue something from the transfer window? Or are we going to have to rely on youth? Given Xande Silva’s talent, would that be such a bad thing?