West Ham’s striking ranks are looking rather depleted now.

Record signing Andre Ayew is out for four months and the latest chapter in the long story of Andy Carroll’s fitness concerns centres around a six-week lay-off, which has left Slaven Bilic scratching his head.

Just a few weeks ago the Croatian appeared to have a decent attacking set-up at his disposal, but now he’s facing using Enner Valencia as his main centre-forward or relying on Jonathan Calleri – who missed a worrying one-on-one against Bournemouth on Sunday.

Alas, the transfer window remains open, and as long as there’s a chance, there is the possibility that another striker will be signed. Indeed reports claim that Manchester City outcast Wilfried Bony is wanted, but there’s a catch… he’d only be a Hammer until January.

It’s understood that the Ivorian has already agreed to move to the cash-rich Chinese Super League during their winter off-season, leaving him available for just half of the campaign.

Although this could be perceived as a blow in east London, we think the situation is actually ideal…

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Instant impact

It’s pretty clear that West Ham need someone NOW.

The Irons’ squad, on paper at least, appears to have a decent amount of depth in the final third, but with Ayew and Carroll out injured and Diafra Sakho’s future up in the air, Bilic was reduced to using wantaway Ecuadorian Valencia up top against Bournemouth on Sunday.

Calleri is an option that will be used as the season progresses, but the Hammers need a player to slot in over the coming weeks and offer presence and goals or 2016/17 may get off to a slow start.

Options already available to Bilic

As alluded to in the last slide, Bilic has players to choose from when everyone is fit.

Carroll is the target man, Ayew the nimble ‘false nine’, Calleri the pacey goal-getter and Ashley Fletcher the promising talent.

To add another player such as Bony to this mix long-term will block the progress of others, which could be an issue.

Leaves the door open for a marquee signing

We all know West Ham chased high-profile names all summer long.

We won’t dwell on who they were or why the deals didn’t happen, but it’s unlikely that the club have been put off going for a ‘marquee man’.

Having Bony permanently could make it difficult to justify signing the sort of forward to take West Ham to the next level, with the Ivorian likely to demand first-team football and use up a significant chunk of the wage budget available at the London Stadium.

Cost

Building slightly on the last point, Bony won’t come cheap.

Realistically Manchester City cannot demand much more than £10m-£15m for their forgotten forward, but beyond the initial outlay comes Bony’s salary of £128,000-per-week, which he’s unlikely to be willing to take a big hit on.

Also, Bony will turn 28 in December, meaning he has little in the way of sell-on value.

Risk-free

The beauty of a loan deal is the short-term nature of the arrangement.

West Ham would be getting a proven Premier League player, would, potentially, be paying only a portion of his wages, would not have to worry about his price decreasing with age and would be able to address a serious concern when it comes to their current squad.

Win win.