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Pablo Felipe has now gone ten matches for West Ham United without scoring a single goal, either in the Premier League or the FA Cup.
This means that the £18 million January signing from Gil Vicente has taken longer to get off the mark in a claret and blue shirt than a host of so-called striker flops from yesteryear.
Modibo Maiga, a £4.7 million signing from Sochaux in 2012, actually enjoyed a pretty lively start to life at West Ham United, with a couple of League Cup goals early in his East London spell.
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Nikica Jelavic scored in his tenth appearance for the club and only managed one more. Ashley Fletcher is a prolific goalscorer at Blackpool these days, but his single Hammers strike also came in game number ten.
Lucas Perez, Ilan, Jonathan Calleri, Emmanuel Emenike, Frederic Piquionne and Enner Valencia also found the net before playing 11 games in a West Ham shirt. This means that Pablo Felipe has statistically made a slower start than some of the most underwhelming centre-forwards to wear claret and blue since the turn of the Century.
Pablo Felipe reaches ten games without a West Ham United goal
Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images
West Ham’s ‘no goal club’ is hardly short of members.
Simone Zaza, Marco Borriello, Jordan Hugill, Marco Boogers, Mido, Benni McCarthy, Albian Ajeti, Marouanne Chamakh and Mladen Petric cost a combined £41.5 million and played a combined 67 games without finding the net even once between them.
The longer Pablo lumbers on – his goal tally empty and confidence draining – the longer these unflattering comparisons will appear.
That Leeds defeat on Sunday was a perfect embodiment of his West Ham career so far. Pablo was guilty of ‘lazy centre-forward play’ when turning in a Jarrod Bowen thunderbolt from a massively-offside position.
And when the time came for him to look Lucas Perri dead in the eye from 12 yards, Pablo scuffed the most predictable penalty miss at the grateful Leeds ‘keeper.
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It is easy to forget that Pablo was genuinely prolific in Portugal with Gil Vicente. He racked up 10 goals in 12 Primeira Liga starts before departing, while his conversion rate was up there with the best in Europe alongside the likes of Erling Haaland and Harry Kane.
West Ham did not simply pluck Pablo out of obscurity. His record, at the time, was extremely impressive.
Then again, Zaza, Borriello, Ajeti and co also joined West Ham either with plenty of pedigree, or following a flurry of goals elsewhere. English football is a different beast. One Pablo is yet to tame.
And the longer his drought goals on, the more difficult it will be to snap.
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