Manuel Pellegrini believes Sebastien Haller has all the attributes required to be a Premier League hit for West Ham United.
Speaking about the Club’s record signing from German side Eintracht Frankfurt, the manager revealed that the 25-year-old was a player he and the Hammers’ recruitment team had long admired.
And, with an all-round centre forward’s game a plethora of creative talents ready to provide the Frenchman with chances galore, Pellegrini says Haller is in a perfect position to continue his prolific career in Claret and Blue.
In his career he scored goals and he is a striker, but he is not just a [penalty] box player... we hope that he will be a very important player for our team
Manuel Pellegrini
"Of course was important to sign him because, if you compare this squad with the squad from last season, there are three strikers who are not here anymore – Marko Arnautovic, Andy Carroll and Lucas Perez – so we needed a new striker,” he began.
“We followed a lot of options and finally we decided Sebastien Haller was the player we needed in this team.
“In his career he scored goals and he is a striker, but he is not just a [penalty] box player. He can come back and with our technical midfielders, we hope that he will be a very important player for our team.”
Having only completed his move to London Stadium on Wednesday, Haller is not with his new West Ham teammates at the Premier League Asia Trophy in China and will instead train at Rush Green before meeting up with them early next.
In his absence, the Irons will take on Newcastle United in the third/fourth-place play-off in Shanghai on Saturday, when they will hope to bounce back following Wednesday’s 4-1 semi-final defeat by Manchester City in Nanjing.
The match will see Pellegrini come face-to-face with new Newcastle manager Steve Bruce for the second preseason in succession, having beaten Bruce’s Aston Villa side a year ago in one of his first game’s in charge of the Hammers.
And the Chilean is looking forward to locking managerial horns with the former Birmingham City, Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday boss in the Far East.
“Steve is a manager with a lot of experience in England so he will obviously help with the way that Newcastle play,” he observed. “For us it is the second game this week, we have worked for ten days in a physical way in Switzerland and for a week here, where we have two games.
“We are going to use a complete squad tomorrow and hopefully play the 90 minutes better than we did against Manchester City.”
Saturday's match will be broadcast live in the UK by Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League, with kick-off at 5pm local time (10am BST).
