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So he's gone; Sebastian Haller will now be wearing the iconic shirt of Ajax from now on. But you can bet that's not the last time we hear his name.

Such is the almost religiously zealous cult amongst some of our fans that surrounds the French/Ivorian, whatever he does now in the foreseeable future will be used in evidence against David Moyes.




Rarely has any player in our recent history polarised our support so obviously. He was either a technically-gifted player of high quality and grossly misused by West Ham or he was a languid, lazy, even overrated striker who failed to cope with the physicality of the Premier League. Certainly not worth a club record £45m.

There are lots of reasons why Haller’s move from Frankfurt didn’t work, but the most obvious is that he is not really a target man and didn’t prosper as the lone striker Moyes favoured. The call for a defender or a midfielder to be sacrificed to allow a second striker was never going to materialise.

Moyes had evaluated his squad, one that leaked goals for fun the previous season, and opted for five at the back with Aaron Cresswell as a left-sided central defender and Arthur Masuaku as a wing back. A back four, with our personnel, just didn’t work and exposed Cresswell far too often.

The side was deemed to need Pablo Fornals' relentless running and graft in midfield, Jarrod Bowen likewise down the other flank and one striker, Michail Antonio. Playing with a back four rarely works for West Ham.

It may have been different if Antonio had not been injured so often, negating much chance of using Haller wide in a front three. West Ham have only had Antonio and Haller in a starting line up six times in the 18 months that the big striker has been at the club.

And Antonio’s constant injury problems, without another striker in the club to play up front, meant Haller was pressed into a target man role you could see he hated. Sometimes the transfer policies of our owners do come back to haunt us.

It is rumoured he wanted out last season. Now we know he knew about Ajax’s interest two months ago and that he had kept in regular contact for even longer with Ajax coach Erik ten Hag, who had been his boss when he was at Utrecht four years ago.




And the plot thickens. Moaning about players being tapped up is just hot air these days. There is hardly a transfer that goes through without some form of tapping up,every club does it. But Haller’s awareness of Ajax’s pending bid is interesting.

Two months ago was roughly the time Antonio did his hamstring against Manchester City, on 7 November. So when Moyes made a clear point of saying that with Antonio out injured, this was the time for Haller to take his chance with a run of games to prove himself at the club, the Frenchman knew full well of Ajax’s intentions.

To say his performances in these past couple of months have been lacklustre is putting it mildly. A couple of wonderful goals at Leeds and against Crystal Palace failed to convince yours truly that he was fully committed. Maybe you can all join up the dots, you must doubt he was very keen on getting inured with a move back to the Netherlands on the cards. Perish the thought.

But being aware of all this, there is still an army of West Ham fans willing to make excuses for him. Statistics are being produced to prove just about anything, but they cannot cover up the fact he gave the ball away far too easily and rarely made much impact in the box, in one game failing to have even a touch of the ball in the area.

His lack of pace was a constant surprise to me. Now at a club like Ajax, one of the world’s great iconic institutions, he will probably thrive and any acts of goalscoring will be used to beat Moyes over the head.

English was not his problem, as we have seen recently in decent TV interviews and it is believed he was well liked in the dressing room. Declan Rice and Masuaku have gone on twitter saying as much and wishing him well. But players seemed to be exasperated with his lazy looking style.

These days the media can hear almost everything shouted from the line in empty stadiums. In a recent game Moyes was constantly on his case demanding more effort and running. Tellingly, also Angelo Ogbonna could be heard coaching and coaxing him on runs and movement.




It’s being said, a little snidely I must say from unnamed sources at the club, that Haller was not Moyes’ type of striker. Frankly one that does not run hard and work off the ball is unlikely to be any Premier League boss’ type of front man.

Without much depth in the squad to cope with the usual Antonio injury, I'm not sure what else Moyes could have done if he wanted to protect his system, one that had seen our defending and midfield work improve out of all recognition.

The clamour for a style to be constructed around Haller, for me , does not hold water. No player should expect that. So Moyes is being carefully pushed forward by unnamed club sources to carry the can. Pretty much typical.

He was, of course, not a Moyes signing. There is even doubt he was Manual Pellegrini’s first choice either. If you go back to the summer Haller joined, there are some significant pointers.

Pellegrini wanted Maxi Gomez from Celta Vigo and he and the club made a big deal out of their moves for him. Although, one Spanish journalist said West Ham allegedly did not impress Celta with a ‘don’t you know how big a club we are’ approach.

Anyway, Valencia moved in, gave Celta two players in Santi Mina and Jorge Salenza plus £13m. And West Ham failed to get their deal over the line.

Pellegrini had wanted Gomez and was in Australia with the squad on tour when the deal collapsed. David Sullivan was then left to pick up the pieces and get a striker in double quick. Laughably our then director of football, Mario Husillos, was in Australia with the squad.




Maybe he should have been behind his desk in east London rather than on a jolly boys summer jaunt? Anyway, it was Sullivan who did the deal.

We know all this because Simon Jordan, the perma-tanned man who took Crystal Palace into financial melt down, leaked the deal on TalkSport claiming he had rung Sullivan only for our owner to say he was really busy buying a striker.

Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now and we all await the glut of goals Haller will score playing for the Dutch giant in a non-too competitive division. Ajax are top as we speak, their only real rivals for the title are PSV and Feyenoord and they are always expected to win matches on the front foot. That will suit Haller.

I am tempted to say good luck, but I feel we have been turned over a bit here by the player and Ajax, with Moyes claiming he knew nothing about it all and hadn’t wanted to sell.

I cannot finish without a mention for Robert Snodgrass, having moved to West Brom with only six months of his contract left. He left his mark on West Ham; his commitment, effort, work rate and general 100 per cent play made him a hero of the fans.

He was hardly likely to get many games this term with Moyes having Rice, Tomas Soucek, Mark Noble, Fornals, Manu Lanzini, Bowen and Andriy Yamolenko contesting midfield roles. I can only echo the general feeling about Snodgrass, once a Hammer always a Hammer, you will be missed and good luck in the future.

If only Haller had run about a bit more like Snodgrass rather than aimlessly wandering around, things might have been different.




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