Arkadiusz Milik’s injury on international duty, which will see the Polish striker miss at least four months of football, has put a lot of pressure on Manolo Gabbiadini.
We covered some of it on Monday when looking at the goalscorer’s decision to reject a chance to join Leicester City in the final 48 hours of the transfer window, and now all eyes are on him.
The player’s lack of form has been apparent this season in his backup role for Milik, and Il Mattino are looking at who Napoli could bring to shoulder some of the workload in January.
Ideally, the deal would be a loan, and one of the men the Naples based newspaper look at is Simone Zaza, currently on a temporary deal at West Ham in the Premier League.
Forced to pay Juventus over £20m to make the deal permanent if the player makes a certain number of appearances for the Hammers over the course of the season, his start might make those in charge think twice about playing him in coming weeks.
Not exactly impressive when called upon, the striker could be open to a return to Italy as soon as January if the option was given to him.
Napoli had already toyed with the idea of bringing him in to replace Gonzalo Higuain instead of Milik, meaning the interest is clearly there.
There are also other options, some of which are far more realistic and, at the moment, consistent in front of goal.
If his West Ham performances don’t improve, though, who knows? Bilic, or whoever is in charge if results don’t pick up, might be open to an early goodbye.
