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This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Manuel Pellegrini has never really had the correct options at his disposal to play with a two-man strike partnership at West Ham – he has instead used a 4-2-3-1 system – as per his Transfermarkt page – or a 4-1-4-1 formation like he did against Brighton last time out.
The mind naturally casts itself to Andy Carroll and Javier Hernandez – why couldn’t the 6 foot 4 striker play up top with the Mexican, win flicks ons and knock the ball down to him?
Perhaps the Geordie’s chronic injury problems prevented that from happening. Marko Arnautovic? He was too selfish to even want to play for the club let alone play for Hernandez.
However, in £45m summer recruit Sebastien Haller, Pellegrini has the perfect man to revert back to the 4-2-2-2 formation that served him so well at Villarreal, and also the 4-4-2 system which he had success with at Manchester City.
The 6 foot 3 Frenchman looks a real powerful force up front – you can see just how good his hold-up play is and how hard he works off the ball by looking at the stats from his Premier League debut against the Citizens.
And then you have Hernandez. Chicharito. The Little Pea.
At 5 foot 9, you immediately think of the traditional big-man-little-man strike partnerships that the game has loved over the years – Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips and Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe are others which spring to mind.
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Also, the former Manchester United striker is a natural-born goalscorer – as of December 2018, all of his 47 Premier League goals had come from inside the box, whilst it goes without saying there aren’t much better in the league in terms of movement.
Just even thinking about the Mexico international timing his runs off Haller’s flick-ons and dragging defenders away for the 25-year-old to have a pop at goal himself is a mouthwatering proposition.
The former Eintracht Frankfurt man unfortunately missed the trip to Brighton due to injury, although when he does return, Pellegrini would be a fool not to at least dust off the old two-man strike partnership system and see how Haller and Hernandez get on.
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