The West Ham striker has been El Tri’s star player for years. But a rough time in the Premier League this past season has raised question about his future
There is not too much shame in being unable to remember your 30th birthday celebrations and Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández might wish the same fate had befallen him when his international teammates helped him mark the milestone this month. Their night out in Mexico City became subject to the kind of salacious rumors that can ruin a World Cup buildup; Hernández strongly denied a tabloid claim that escorts were present at the event and that particular storm appears to have blown over – at least until any on-pitch mishaps surface around El Tri.
Something that will not go away quite as easily is the issue of Hernández’s form. The West Ham striker has deific status in his home country and it would take much more than a late night to change that. The problem is that, if a key individual should ideally play his way into form just in time for football’s biggest event, there has been little sign of that happening. It has been a damaging 12 months for Hernández, who said upon returning to the Premier League that he wanted to “show I can achieve the things I dream of”. Eight goals in 33 appearances for the Hammers, only 19 of them in starts, was a stark departure from his coruscating form at Bayern Leverkusen. And although there are plenty of mitigating factors there is an argument that his days as an irreplaceable totem may be coming to an end – as all good things eventually do.
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