Allardyce hoping Zarate provides new dimension

Sam Allardyce hopes new signing Mauro Zarate can provide West Ham with something unique as they aim for a more expansive brand of football.

The signing of the former Velez Sarsfield striker was confirmed on Wednesday, and represented the club’s first transfer deal of the off-season.

Following a meeting with the board, Allardyce agreed to introduce a more attacking style of football at Upton Park, and the manager thinks that securing the signature of the 27-year-old could be the first step to achieving that.

“This signing is based on his record from being in Argentina, where he has scored the goals that he has scored because we are looking for some goals,” he told the club’s official website.

“Hopefully he is going to settle in quickly and bring us those sort of options that we need to be more successful in terms of goalscoring next season.

“We hope that a combination of the fact that he knows the Premier League (after a spell at Birmingham City) and now he has become more experienced and more mature, he is going to have evolved in terms of giving us a few more goals in the Premier League when he gets the opportunity.

“He is a different type of player to what we have already got, which is what we have been looking for for a while.

“He is small and sharp and quick and has got good feet, so hopefully he can give us another dimension for what we don’t have in the squad at the moment.”