With little left to play for this season, fans and staff alike at West Ham will be beginning to focus on the summer ahead and how they can improve upon the squad from this season.

One sticking point for fans since last summer has been the addition of a big money striker, something assured by the owners time and again but yet to materialise. Their attempts to appease the fans ahead of this season, the loan signing of Simone Zaza with an option to buy, failed miserably after the Italian left in January having failed to score in eleven outings for Slaven Bilic, managing to get just 22% of his shots on target (according to Squawka).

One solution which has been bubbling since before Christmas is a move for former Hammer Jermain Defoe, who has been single handedly keeping Sunderland in the Premier League since his return from a spell in Major League Soccer.

The 34-year-old, who recently earned his first call up to the England squad since 2013 –  before he’d left for the MLS – for clashes with Germany and Lithuania,  has bagged 14 goals for the Black Cats this season, and 36 since he joined in 2015.

The Three Lions striker, who has over 50 caps to his name with 19 goals to boot, made nearly 100 appearances in his time in east London, and has been mooted as a solution to the striking woes of his former employers.

However, whilst he has shown he can hack it at Premier League level with David Moyes’ side the Englishman is not the answer to Bilic’s problems.

In moving Defoe to a higher level, where a lot more will be asked of him in terms of physicality and pressing and so-on, there are no assurances he will still score on  a similar basis to that which he has in the north east. Therefore, it could be argued that the Hammers would have another on and off striker on their hands, similar to Andy Carroll, a striker whom you can trust every now and then but will not feature at a consistent level.

Therefore, it would be wise to move for someone young, hungry and ready to make the step up at the London Stadium. Furthermore, whilst the ranks do need bolstering, fans would be wise to look to their own ranks and see a ready made talisman in former Swansea man, Andre Ayew.

Having come off the bench to either score or assist in his last three outings, the summer signing was finally handed a start against Leicester last weekend, and once again got himself a goal.

The forward has shot up in the estimations of Hammers fans since his return from injury and could well, along with a capable partner to add depth brought in over this summer, become the main man fans at the London Stadium have been pining for.