As I write this, it’s the first international break of the season and Niclas Fullkrug pulled out of Germany’s game with a calf muscle injury. I have no idea how bad the injury is but I fear, as it’s West Ham, it will probably be six months. This leaves us with our main striking option being 33-year-old Callum Wilson, our latest free signing courtesy of a certain Mr Salthouse. Wilson joined us in the summer to howls of outrage, on the back of selling Mohammad Kudus. Here was yet another “past-it” striker, on a free, and a Will Salthouse client at that. Another “gift” from David Sullivan to a manager, one that was most probably unwanted.
The Injury Record and the Pace Problem
Newcastle fans said: “His legs have gone”, and he arrived having failed to score in any of his 18 Premier League appearances last season and missed 19 games through injury. Since 2020, Wilson has been injured for around 700 days through a variety of injuries. A real shame for a striker who clearly has – or had – the tools for the job and had we signed him seven or eight years ago, we would be rubbing our hands together. We have been crying out for pace all over the park, including in that forward role, and Wilson’s pace, according to the Geordies, has left him.
We have needed to replace, or at least help Antonio, for several years. David Sullivan has signed well over 50 strikers for West Ham, most of them failing, many of them being sold on at a loss. At the start of this summer’s window, we were told that we would be signing two forwards, this morphed not “we don’t need a forward”. We ended up with Wilson – whether Potter wanted him is a different matter.
A Past of Antagonism and a Present of Promise
During his first interview for the club website, Wilson said he had “some wrongs to right”. In the past, he had mocked West Ham’s recent European win, and the club in general. Then there was the infamous “touch of magic” handball for Bournemouth. Hammers fans weren’t blind to the fact that Wilson was signed just as “club legend” Antonio was shown the door. Sometimes, it seems like Sullivan revels in winding up the fanbase. I’m not sure which other striker he could have brought in that would have irked the faithful more than Wilson.
Wilson has a good Premier League pedigree, particularly against West Ham – having scored 12 goals in 16 appearances against us, more than he has scored against any other club. He scored a hattrick for Bournemouth back in 2015, seeing us lose 4-3 at home – I remember that being a particularly painful defeat. Wilson’s 88 league goals put him 44th in the PL’s all-time scorer list. At least no more of those will be against us.
Wilson seems hungry to do well, he has apparently signed a contract that has a low basic salary and is heavily incentivised on how much he plays and how many goals he scores. In his couple of cameo appearances so far, he does indeed look up for it, scoring against Forest with a header. From what little we have seen so far, he looks like a proper number 9, someone with an instinct for goal.
The Looming Question of Fitness
The massive question that will hang over his head is how long he will last before injury strikes? We desperately need him to stay fit, but that injury record is there for all to see. Potter claimed that his team knows how to handle players who have an injury history, but as we are seeing with Fullkrug, sometimes players just continue to get injuries. The risk when you sign players into their 30s increases. We have been crying out for some younger strikers, somewhere between the age of Calum Marshall and Fullkrug, in their mid-twenties, with a good fitness record – Wilson is not that.
At this point, our best bet is that Wilson’s fitness is carefully managed, and that he manages to stay fit. Perhaps his time on the pitch rotated with young Calum Marshall, who looked promising in pre-season. Hopefully, Fullkug’s injury will not be serious, and he will be back soon, or who knows, maybe we will add to our forward line in the January window. When your two main strikers have a combined age of 65, and come with a sackful of previous injuries, troubles will never be far away. Let’s hope Wilson shrugs off his recent injury issues, and gets the fanbase behind him. Time will tell.
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