West Ham United have already started making moves in the hope of turning a dismal start to the 2025/26 season around after replacing Graham Potter with Nuno Espirito Santo, but they remain a club in serious danger of relegation unless thing change. Fortunately, the January transfer window will provide them with a chance at making some further adjustments.

The winter window isn’t an easy time to do budget-friendly business, however, and they likely won’t be able to buy a slew of first-rate players in – so their transfer business will have to be carefully and precisely considered to ensure that they sign the right players in the right positions and the right price. But what do West Ham need most, and which players alleged to be on their shortlist might make the most sense as potential new signings?

Why West Ham need to focus on improving their attack

At first look, there isn’t much that doesn’t need to be improved at the London Stadium. Only two teams have scored fewer goals than West Ham – and only three teams have generated a lower expected goals tally – while their defence has shipped 16 goals, more than anybody else, and only six teams have a lower average possession total. The stats make for pretty bleak reading across the board.

The hope, however, is that the way Santo sets his teams up will help to mitigate some of the concerns in defence and midfield. The Portuguese head coach typically lines up in a 4-2-3-1 formation with a deep defence and a compact midfield shield in front of it, ceding large quantities of possession in favour of hitting opposing teams on the counter-attack.

It’s a system with means that the midfield’s struggles to retain the ball won’t be such a significant issue, as keeping hold of possession will no longer be the point as it was under Potter – while the combination of a tightly-packed defence and low block should help to reduce the volume of sloppy goals they conceded at the back. If the plan works half as well as it did at Nottingham Forest (and he can fix West Ham’s woeful defending from set pieces) then they should get rather harder to beat before too long.

In any case, there is undeniable talent at the back. Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Jean-Clair Todibo and Max Kilman are good defenders who should offer a solid long-term base if they can close to their best, and El Hadji Malick Diouf has shown flashes of his talent. Tomáš Souček is a stout defensive presence in front of a back four, and Mateus Fernandes’ all-action box-to-box style should suit Santo down to the ground.

It’s a rather different story up front, where the attack is wholly reliant on Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paquetá both to score and create goals. Not only are their centre-forwards ageing and injury prone, Crysencio Summerville has not yet proven to be an adequate replacement for Mohammed Kudus.

Santo’s system needs players who can fill the roles played by Anthony Elanga and Calum Hudson-Odoi at Forest – wingers who are not only quick but who are comfortable carrying the ball, beating defenders one-on-one and getting in behind to make use of long balls. Summerville, who has struggled at the top level and has beaten his man just 33% of the time since joining the Hammers, isn’t necessarily the answer.

Ideally, what West Ham need is a left winger who can at least provide competition for Summerville’s position and a central striker who can stay healthy. A fit Niclas Füllkrug should, in theory, make a good proxy for Chris Wood, but his availability simply can’t be relied upon, and the same is true with Callum Wilson.

The goalscoring winger who could be precisely what West Ham need in January

Finding a striker won’t be an easy task. There are stories suggesting that they could try to take Real Madrid prodigy Endrick on loan and that may provide the goals they need, but other names linked – such as Porto’s Samu Aghehowa, are either unlikely to move over the winter or simply so expensive that it might stretch West Ham’s profit and sustainability position without careful amortisation.

Aghehowa should suit Santo’s style very nicely, admittedly, and he’s still scoring goals at a ferocious rate in Portugal, but he would likely cost around €80m (£70m) if Porto can be brought to the table at all in the middle of the season. It may be more realistic to focus their finances and efforts elsewhere.

One player who is most certainly on West Ham’s radar may fit the bill for the left wing, however. The club already made a tentative attempt to sign Galatasaray’s Baris Alper Yilmaz over the summer, with a reported £21m bid turned down quickly – far too low given the asking price. It could be a deal worth revisiting, however.

Sport Witness report that the Turkish media believe a deal could be done in January, albeit at a fee closer to €50m (£43.5m). That’s more than the £35m reported to be his valuation over the summer, but gives us a ballpark at least.

Even if the price tag has increased, Yilmaz may well be worth the money. He’s quick, an excellent dribbler, and brilliant at finding space to latch on to balls over the top – most importantly, however, he’s productive, and a genuine goal threat down the left.

Yilmaz scored 12 goals in 32 league games for Galatasaray last season and already has three goals (and two assists) in six matches so far this year – and he’s been a key player in a team that has won three consecutive Turkish Super Lig titles.

Granted, two of his goals this year have come from the penalty spot, but none of last year’s 12 were spot-kicks and his finishing is unquestionably impressive. He’s direct, dangerous, and looks like the kind of player who would thrive in a counter-attacking system.

It isn’t clear why West Ham decided not to improve their offer for Yilmaz over the summer, but he looks like exactly the kind of winger that they sorely need right now – and if there’s one big January deal that could make all the difference as they scrap for survival, this could well be it.