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Back in February 1997, an audacious double-striker swoop ensured West Ham maintained their Premier League berth by the skin of their teeth.

Deep in trouble at the foot of the 1996/97 Premiership table, manager Harry Redknapp implored chairman Terry Brown to give him a fighting chance by adding to his extremely limited pool of strikers - which essentially numbered just Iain Dowie and the on-loan Mike Newell - having lost Tony Cottee (to Selangor), Paulo Futre (to Atletico) and Florin Raducioiu (to Selfridges) since the commencement of the campaign.




Not exactly known as one to open the purse strings willingly, it was therefore a major surprise when Brown agreed to Redknapp's request. Within a matter of days, Paul Kitson and John Hartson - aka 'the two Sons' - were signed from Newcastle United and Arsenal respectively for a combined fee of £5.5million, a huge outlay at the time with Hartson's £3.2million fee a new club record.

By the end of the season, little more than three months later, Redknapp and his new stars had helped the club steer a course to safety, ending the campaign in the relative safety and anonymity of 14th place having experienced a gradual rise away from the bottom three following the duo's signings - even if West Ham's survival wasn't ensured until the penultimate round of fixtures in early May.

That arrived following wins against Tottenham (4-3), Chelsea (3-2), Coventry City (3-1), Leicester City (1-0) and Sheffield Wednesday (5-1). Five huge victories combined with a handful of draws (versus Aston Villa, Wimbledon, Middlesbrough, Everton and Newcastle United) returning 20 huge points that took West Ham to a total of 42, almost double that which had been achieved by the beginning of February.

While the new strikers proved to be worth every single penny spent on acquiring them, the defence, helped by two capable forwards doing the business at the opposite end of the field began to do its job too - so much so, that only THREE matches ended in defeat once Hartson and Kitson tipped up at the Boleyn.




As situations go, it wasn't a million miles away from that which Nuno Santo and his squad find themselves embroiled in right now, in January 2026. Rooted firmly in the bottom three of the Premier League, four points adrift of safety and without the necessary firepower to score the goals that could potentially lead the club to safety.

At least that was until the frequently-frugal-in-winter David Sullivan opted to essentially repeat history and sign two strikers himself out of thin air - though coming from rather further afield than north London and Newcastle, with the club raiding Portugal's Gil Vicente and Italy's Lazio for Pablo Felipe (£20million) and Taty Castellanos (£26million) respectively.

While neither of the fees paid for the two new forwards come close to the club's current record outlay, which stands at the £40.5million paid for Sebastien Haller in 2019 - Castellanos' fee represents the 13th highest expenditure on a new player with Pablo's way down the list at joint 22nd - it is nonetheless a significant and rare outlay for the club which, under the current administration, rarely spends big in January.

That they have done so now suggests there are deep concerns within the boardroom - as there should be! - with the season already halfway through. West Ham, sitting on just 14 points from 20 matches will almost certainly require at least another 21/22 points to stand any chance of avoiding the drop - that's equivalent to seven wins and a draw, or six wins and four draws at circa 1.2 points per game. Currently, that average currently stands at just 0.7 per game.




And so the first test comes little more than 24 hours after Castellanos' arrival was announced with the visit of Nottingham Forest, themselves in dire straights following a successful campaign with none other than Nuno Santo at the helm. With just four points separating the two teams, a win for the Hammers would put them within a point of the Tricky Trees, who are themselves navigating a European campaign alongside an increasingly erratic domestic one.

Nuno Santo was in defiant mood on Monday while both of his new strikers are apparently chomping at the bit, awaiting their Premier League debuts. They'll need to hit the ground running, which wasn't quite the case when Hartson and Kitson made their debuts in a 1-0 defeat at Derby that saw the former pick up a booking which led to a two-match suspension!

Once Hartson returned from suspension however the rest was history, as the dynamic duo went on to score 13 goals combined - five for Hartson, eight for Kitson - from a total of just 11 appearances for the Welsh international and 14 for the latter. West Ham went on to end that season two points clear of the relegation zone, four places above it. What we wouldn't give for similar numbers from Pablo and Castellanos between now and May...

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