West Ham are gambling £50million & club’s future on two strikers we’ve never heard of | OneFootball

In a sign that the sky is green and the grass is yellow, West Ham United have begun the January transfer window with unprecedented intent.

Renowned for conducting their business at the pace of an asthmatic snail, starting 2026 marooned in the relegation zone has focused minds in the Hammers’ boardroom.

Adama Traore is expected to join a short-term deal from Fulham, fitting nicely into the West Ham way of signing players who are past their best and injury-prone.

But it’s two more incoming signings that have caused coughing fits across East London and Essex.

After getting cold feet over Jorgen Strand Larsen, West Ham are committing almost £50million to a pair of players that only World Soccer devotees or liars have any prior knowledge about.

With agent Jorge Mendes’ tentacles all over it, £17.5million is being spent on 21-year-old forward Pablo Felipe and a further £25million is being readied for Lazio’s Taty Castellanos.

If you squint hard enough, there’s a certain charm to signing two players that you’re almost surprised have Wikipedia pages.

Pablo is rated as a top prospect, having scored nine league goals for Gil Vicente in 2025-26. This is arguably a more eye-catching feat than stat-padding for one of Portugal’s Big Three.

On the other hand, there is a recognition at West Ham that he would need time to adjust to English football. You can expect to see the best of him on a cold Tuesday night at Lincoln next season.

Meanwhile, Castellanos was apparently offered to David Moyes back in 2022 when the player was in the MLS.

But it was felt that he did not possess the quality to join a squad that had just finished seventh and reached the Europa League semi-finals.

It’s sobering to see how far the Hammers have fallen since those heady European days, with the desperation to sign *anybody* clouding rational thought.

Both players will be bolstering a skeleton forward line, with Nuno Espirito Santo giving his approval to the double deal.

And it’s hardly like West Ham have any luck signing more established and renowned players; the club’s striker curse is one of football’s most infamous.

But it does have the air of Southampton’s mad trolley dash in January 2023, with big sums spent on duds like Mislav Orsic and Paul Onuachu helping draw the curtain on their 11-year top-flight tenure.

The rush to sign players is also influenced by the fixture list; West Ham face must-win games against Wolves and Nottingham Forest in the next five days.

After pleading poverty in the summer, David Sullivan has been spooked into opening his chequebook – just as two heavy defeats to Sunderland and Chelsea in August forced him to sign some midfielders.

But the decision to start the campaign with just Callum Wilson and the Premier League’s worst-ever signing Niclas Fullkrug up front has set West Ham on the path to oblivion.

It was an act of negligence, one that cannot be covered up with shiny new toys at the beginning of the year.

West Ham have blinked first, acting as frenzied Black Friday shoppers to bolster their attack. Their future now hinges on the success of two unknown quantities.