Signing Higuain or Costa would be asking for trouble for West Ham

The last time West Ham had a striker who scored 20-or-more goals, Eminem’s Just Lose It was topping the charts and the Apple iPhone did not exist.

That was Teddy Sheringham in the Championship in 2004-05.

No other current Premier League club have had to wait as long for such a scorer but West Ham, after losing Marko Arnautovic, are attempting to fix that now.

They have looked at two former Chelsea strikers. The first is Gonzalo Higuain, the Juventus forward searching for a new club. The other is Diego Costa, 30 and available this summer.

Costa happens to be the last player to score 20-plus in a season for Chelsea. That was in 2016-17, when the snarling striker led the west Londoners to the title.

He has not been the same since then, however. In 2017-18, Costa scored three goals in 15 La Liga games for Atletico Madrid. In 2018-19, he scored two in 16.

Would he be the answer to West Ham’s issues in front of goal? Would Higuain at the age of 31? You suspect not, and the Hammers have a history of bad luck up front.

Since January 2010, when David Sullivan and David Gold completed their takeover of the club, Opta statistics tell us that 30 different strikers have been used. Very few have been hits.

The man with the most goals has been Andy Carroll, with 33. That, though, was achieved in 126 games. The next nearest was Arnautovic with 21 in 59, then Diafra Sakho with 18 in 62.

Benni McCarthy appeared 11 times but failed to score. Mido made nine appearances but again, no goals. It was the same story for Emmanuel Emenike and Simone Zaza, among others.

Some at the club are still scratching their head over their £10million signing of Jordan Hugill last January, and Costa would not come on the cheap. His wages would be steep, with Everton and Wolves apparently also monitoring his situation.

Yet two years of disciplinary issues and injuries have taken their toll on the 30-year-old who last season only averaged a goal or assist every 279 minutes.

Naturally, there are question marks about whether the combustible Costa could pick up where he left off in the Premier League and whether he would be worth the money (or the hassle, given his history of flare-ups).

The same goes for Higuain, who struggled to provide any wow factor during his short stay in the Premier League with Chelsea.

Eintracht Frankfurt’s Sebastien Haller, though somewhat inexperienced at the age of 25, might represent a better bet.

The Frenchman is being heavily linked with West Ham, with Manuel Pellegrini said to be particularly keen.

So who is Haller? He is a striker on the up. In 2017-18 for Bundesliga side Frankfurt, he averaged 181 minutes per goal or assist. In 2018-19, he made it 91, so was averaging a goal involvement a game. For France’s Under 21s, he scored 13 times in 20 outings.

Haller, who is said to be interested in moving to England and has also been eyed up by Manchester United as a potential replacement for Romelu Lukaku, would cost close to £40m.

With him, there is an element of walking into the unknown, given he has never played in the Premier League previously.

But he is a player with a lot to prove and whose statistics in front of goal are going one way. For the ageing Costa and Higuain, theirs are heading in the opposite direction.