Sebastien Haller can enjoy a successful season for West Ham after breaking his duck for the club at Watford, according to skipper Mark Noble. The 25-year-old French forward, who arrived from Eintracht Frankfurt for £45million this summer, opened his Hammers account with two strikes in nine second-half minutes to earn his new club their first three points of the Premier League campaign.
Haller has been tasked with filling Marko Arnautovic’s boots and Noble, also on the scoresheet from an early penalty in West Ham’s 3-1 victory at Vicarage Road, hopes the his brace will provide him with the basis to star in the future. “When you come to a club and you’ve been bought for that sort of money, you want to get off to a good start,” said Noble.
“We played Manchester City at home, which was a tough game for us, and then Brighton away which he missed, but he was back with two goals and let’s hope he can continue with that.” “We’ve got a long way to go but it’s a great start for him.”
Haller made his name as a striker at Dutch outfit FC Utrecht, where he scored 51 goals in 98 appearances over three seasons on the back of a disappointing two-and-a-half year spell in the French Ligue 2 with Auxerre.
He enjoyed success at a higher level in the German Bundesliga with Frankfurt with 33 goals in 77 appearances as he helped the side win the 2017-18 DFB-Pokal courtesy of a 3-1 victory against Bayern Munich in the final.
It was always going to take some time for Haller to get to grips with the English game, but his double at the weekend will be a relief to Manuel Pellegrini after he splashed out big money to take him to the London Stadium.
Ironically, despite being pleased to get off the mark for the Londoners, Haller was far from impressed with his overall display in the match. “It was a terrible game for me,” he said. “Yes. I wasn’t that good today – it wasn’t my best game. But at the end it was two goals – that is the job of the striker.”
It’s possible that Pellegrini will give Haller the night off at Newport in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday, but he will no doubt be looking to build on his two goals when the Hammers face Norwich on home soil this weekend.
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