EXCLUSIVE: With Official Announcements Imminent In The Next Hours, West Ham United Former Striker Gianluca Scamacca Says its good be back, as he Has taken to his Instagram Page to Announce How Excited He is to Be Returning Back to London Stadium, After Atalanta FC Terminated His Contract this afternoon, However, The 26-year old Italian International Agreed a 3-years Personal Terms With the Hammers And Graham Potter this afternoon…Rate this deal 1-10 Hammers fans..

Joe Cole cannot believe how ‘bad’ one signing was at West Ham ‘I was so excited’…

West Ham United has long been known as a graveyard for talented centre-forwards; Niclas Fullkrug the latest expensive Premier League acquisition after Sebastien Haller and Gianluca Scamacca to toil in a claret and blue shirt.

While Fullkrug is keen to stay at West Ham and right the wrongs of an underwhelming debut season, the fact is that between them Scamacca, Haller and the big-money arrival from Borussia Dortmund cost a combined £102 million and scored only 16 top-flight goals.

This, of course, is just the tip of an iceberg which can be traced all the way down into the frozen depths.

Simone Zaza, Marouane Chamakh, Modibo Maiga, Benni McCarthy, Mido, Evan Ferguson… The list goes on.

Just this week, Upton Park icon Frank McAvennie blamed West Ham for wasting Danny Ings as a once-prolific Premier League marksman leaves the London Stadium on a free.

Joe Cole, meanwhile, casts his mind back a quarter of a century as he reflects on another centre-forward who – for all the wrong reasons – would come to epitomise what it means to be a ‘typical’ West Ham United striker signing.

Davor Suker celebrates for West Ham United.

5 Sep 2000: Davor Suker of West Ham celebrates during the FA Carling Premiership match against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light, in Sunderland, England. The match ended in a 1-1 draw. Mandatory Credit: Michael Steele /Allsport
Joe Cole was ‘so excited’ when West Ham United signed Davor Suker from Arsenal
Just two years before touching down at Upton Park, Davor Suker had claimed the Golden Boot at the 1998 World Cup. A La Liga and Champions League winner with Real Madrid to boot, and one of the finest finishers of his generation.

The legendary Peter Schmeichel would find that out the hard way; on the wrong end of one of the most iconic goals in European Championship history.

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No wonder Joe Cole, the bright young thing of English football at the time, could barely sleep a wink when he discovered that he would be supplying the bullets for the once-deadly Davor Suker in claret and blue.

“At West Ham, I was so excited when Davor Suker came in,” Cole recalls. “Because he was the Golden Boot winner [at the French World Cup]!”

Cole thinks a hip injury was why Suker flopped at Upton Park.

As is often the case however – see Jack Wilshere, Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez, Patrice Evra, Fullkrug and more – West Ham got there a little too late. Signing Suker when the rot had already set in.

That Arsenal allowed their London neighbours to sign the 32-year-old for free, shortly after they forked over £3.5 million to Real Madrid, should perhaps have set the alarm bells ringing right from the off.

“Mate, his hip was so bad,” Cole sighs, Suker’s attempts to recreate that iconic chip against Schmeichel’s Denmark destined to end in frustration. “He kept running towards goal during a shooting [session] and trying to dink the goalie!

“I’m like, what’s this guy not shooting [properly] for? It’s the Golden Boot winner of the World Cup!

“We signed him when he had a dodgy hip. He surprised me because he was the Golden Boot winner and his hip had just packed up. That was typical West Ham!”

Suker would go on to net only three goals in 11 Hammers appearances. He retired two years after leaving Upton Park as well, following a brief spell in Germany with 1860 Munich.