West Ham have had some brilliant attacking players in the past decade, with Dimitri Payet being the pick of the bunch.
The Frenchman was signed from Marseille for around £10.7m back in 2015, spending a year and a half at the club before returning to Marseille for nearly double the fee.
Payet made 60 appearances for the Hammers, scoring 15 goals and providing 22 assists in 4,981 minutes played.
They have signed a number of players since then in a bid to replace his genius in the final third, with Mohamed Kudus one such player.
However, there was a player who happened to earn even more, but whether or not he was a success is very up for debate.
Felipe Anderson at West Ham
One player that West Ham signed in an attempt to find their next superstar was Felipe Anderson, who arrived from Lazio in July 2018 for an initial fee of around £35m, with add-ons, making him a club-record signing at the time.
It caused quite a stir, with Mario Husillos, then West Ham’s director of football saying: “We believe we have signed one of the most exciting talents in European football. This is a very big statement.”
After joining the club in 2018, Anderson didn’t have the worst start to life in London, scoring ten goals and providing five assists in 40 appearances, totalling 3,199 minutes played.
However, the following season, the Brazilian only managed one goal, still getting six assists in all competitions, but starting to slack with his output.
This poor form in the 2019/20 season, alongside the success of Jarrod Bowen who signed in 2020, saw Anderson phased out, first on loan to FC Porto, before rejoining Lazio on a permanent deal for just £2.6m.
Anderson was reportedly earning £100k per week when at the club, representing a transfer fee and a wage fee – earning over £10m in salary – which didn’t reflect his impact on the side, especially when compared to someone like Mohamed Kudus, who is earning £90k per week.
First Impressions
What did pundits and fans alike think about their new star signing when they arrived? Football FanCast's 'First Impressions' series has everything you need.
How Kudus compares to Felipe Anderson
Kudus was signed from Ajax last summer, joining the Hammers for a fee of around £38m. The 24-year-old has already made 54 appearances for the club, scoring 15 goals and providing seven assists in his 4,118 minutes. That goal tally is already better than the 12 Anderson managed in London.
His debut season at the club was superb, settling in really quickly with his team, making 45 appearances in 2023/24, scoring 14 goals and providing six assists.
Another quality he has already shown is his positional versatility, playing on both the left and right wing, as a number ten, and even as a centre-forward last season for the Hammers.
Goals
0.37
0.28
Assists
0.17
0.14
xG
0.25
0.16
xAG
0.15
0.18
Progressive Carries
4.07
5.95
Progressive Passes
2.94
5.65
Shots Total
2.52
1.78
Key Passes
1.18
1.89
Successful Take-Ons
4.04
2.25
Shot-Creating Actions
3.62
4.11
These metrics tell us Anderson actually had quite a good campaign with the stats he was producing, offering good creative numbers, progressing play for his side, and constantly getting involved. However, he clearly wasn’t as efficient on the output end, with Kudus beating him for goals, assists, xG and shots taken per 90.
Perhaps Anderson was unlucky with his timing, as Bowen joined as he was being phased out, whilst Kudus now gets to link up with Bowen, who seems to get the best out of others, as well as Lucas Paqueta, another extremely talented playmaker.
Whilst the transfer fee paid clearly wasn’t worth it, as he left the club just two years later, he did seem to produce some top-tier metrics considering the side he was in, which has to be taken into account when assessing his wages compared to others in the squad at the time.
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