Manuel Pellegrini has warned Premier League defences that Sebastien Haller is only going to improve for West Ham as the season progresses. The Hammers boss swooped to sign the 25-year-old French forward in a club-record £45million deal from German side Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer transfer window.
Haller arrived at the London Stadium with a big reputation after scoring 92 career goals in just over 230 appearances in spells with Auxerre, FC Utrecht and Frankfurt.
The pressure was on Haller to hit the ground running because his arrival was to fill the void left by the departures of Andy Carroll, Lucas Perez and Marko Arnautovic during pre-season.
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So far he has managed to repay the faith shown in him by Pellegrini after scoring three goals in as many Premier League appearances for the Londoners.
Pellegrini has been pleased with Haller’s early season form, the Chilean is confident that it is just the tip of the ice-berg.
He said: “I think that Sebastien will improve a lot. It is not easy to know the Premier League. He needs some time to adapt to Premier League defenders.”
Despite his positive start with West Ham, Haller was again overlooked by France coach Didier Deschamps for this current international break.
Chelsea’s 32-year-old veteran forward Olivier Giroud, who has started only two games for Chelsea this season, scoring once, got the nod instead.
However, Haller firmly believes that he is at the right club to help propel him into Les Bleus squad at some point in the future. “I think it is about profile. I need to get my statistics up and score goals. I did it in Holland. I did it in Germany.
Now I want to do it in England. Just to prove to myself and show I can be effective,” he said. “I think West Ham was a good club to show this. The whole team is there to perform well so I have to show I can perform in England. I put pressure on myself every day.”
