Hammers Blogs

Opinion: Ex-West Ham target’s comments don’t make for easy reading

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West Ham fans are still reportedly looking at bringing in a new 3rd striker, and whilst Salomon Rondon would have been absolutely perfect in rotation with Chicharito and Sebastien Haller, the Venezuelan is now playing his football under Rafa Benitez in China.

The ex-West Brom and Newcastle man was supposedly a target for West Ham United before his move to Asia, where he now turns out for Dalian Yifang (The Daily Mail), however, the supporters won’t be happy to know that their club never made an offer for the striker.

Despite having guaranteed top-flight goalscoring pedigree in the Premier League, Rondon has claimed that there was never a formal offer on the table from West ham for him, as per an exclusive interview from The Sun.

Rondon claimed that he was waiting for Manuel Pellegrini to call him after the pair worked together at Malaga, saying:

‘I was waiting to see if Pellegrini would call and say, ‘Do you want to come to West Ham? We have a good project. We are trying to go to the Europa League.

‘But I never received that call and Rafa was calling me all the time, so I chose to go to China.’

The fee that eventually prised Rondon from The Hawthorns and halfway across the world to play in the Chinese Super League was a paltry £16.5m. That money isn’t excessive by any means, and it surely isn’t out of the budget of the Irons.

Instead, the club went on to sign Haller, and whilst that deal looks to be a superb one, the fans will be keen for one more striker to be brought in, and it’s hard to think of a better option than Rodn given his style of play and price tag.

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