news-engine

With two of their three forwards quite likely to be missing following separate incidents yesterday, West Ham may be in something of a fix when it comes to selecting a side to travel to Bolton for Tuesday night’s Championship fixture. Taty Castellanos came off limping late-on in the 3-0 victory whilst team mate Pablo Felipe didn’t even make the starting eleven after a knock in the build up to the game. Joel Piroe, meanwhile looked pretty done in after 94 minutes and clearly won’t manage a whole 46 game season, especially with these three day turnarounds not being something the forward has dealt with recently. Which presents Nuno with something of a headache. His solution yesterday was to bring on midfielder Kanté and wide man Austbø to refresh West Ham’s attacking options but that is not an option for a starting line up should both Castellanos and Pablo prove unavailable. Having sold Callum Marshall and loaned Josh Landers, signing a free striker such as Jamie Vardy might have made a lot of sense once the transfer window closed, with our own source suggesting claiming Nuno was an admirer, apparently believing the veteran had one season left in his legs. Evidently Burnley’s Nicky Hayen is of the same belief as the Clarets have just stepped in where West Ham feared to go and have signed Vardy on a one year deal at Turf Moor (main pic). Whether the Irons have made the right choice by sitting on their hands over a short term deal for Vardy will become very clear during the coming weeks as Burnley will be desperate to start picking up points and leaving bottom place behind. If Pablo and Taty both fail to recover in time for Tuesday night the the Hammers might yet regret turning their noses up at the prospect of landing the 39 year old on a free transfer.