Was Carlton The Only Option

It was confirmed this afternoon that Carlton Cole is having a medical at West Ham, in hope of returning to the club and if you read a few of my recent posts about it you'll see that I'm not totally against the idea, by no means am I thrilled by it either!

The probable return of Cole has seen a pessimistic reaction from many West Ham fans, and with good reason-after-all we expected to sign a new striker who could inject the team with some much needed fire power, now we seem to be taking a step backwards by re-signing a player who's best years looked well and truly behind him.

I'm not going to bore you by going over finances again, we've heard enough about that already!
With that being said its got me thinking, a free transfer looked the most likely option; that way we avoid any transfer or loan fees and instead we can just focus on the wage bill. So if you take a look at the free transfer market you'll see that Carlton Cole was the best bet, apart from Cole their wasn't much to choose from.

The only other player I could see who would match Big Sam's criteria in a striker was ex Qpr forward Jay Bothroyd who reminds me of Carlton in many ways, both mainly operate in that 'Target Man' position, their best years are well and truly behind them and finally they never seemed to live up to the potential.

So Maybe Carlton was the best option, hopefully he'll fill the void while Andy Carroll is injured and you never know he might just surprise us.