Despite David Moyes continuously stating that his West Ham United side were in desperate need of a new centre-forward in the January transfer window, as the clock struck midnight on Tuesday morning, the Hammers entered February with the same number of strikers as they had 31 days prior - one.

Indeed, while the Irons did make a flurry of late moves in the winter market, reportedly offering Benfica €50m (£41.5m) for Darwin Nunez, as well as making a late bid to sign Atalanta's Duvan Zapata, none of the club's approaches were successful, leaving Moyes incredibly short of depth at centre-forward ahead of the second half of the current campaign.

As such, considering Michail Antonio's hamstrings are made of glass, the 58-year-old manager now faces the challenge of rotating the 31-year-old enough to keep him fit, but possessing no direct replacement for the Jamacia international - something that will likely lead to the Scot fielding Jarrod Bowen up top.

However, rather than playing one of the Hammers' most talented wide attacking threats out of position, perhaps it would be wise for Moyes to take a closer look at one of the club's up and coming forwards in the form of Armstrong Oko-Flex.

"Very dangerous"

While a 19-year-old winger is certainly no substitute to the £41.5m signing of a centre-forward who has scored 34 goals and registered 14 assists over 69 appearances for Benfica, there is nevertheless an argument to be made that Oko-Flex is deserving of a more regular place in Moyes' matchday squads - something that West Ham missing out on Nunez's signing could well have created an opportunity for.

Indeed, since joining the Hammers from Celtic last summer, the Republic of Ireland U21 international has been in fantastic form over his 16 Premier League 2 appearances for Dmitri Halajko's side, scoring 11 goals - including hat-tricks against Arsenal and Crystal Palace, as well as a brace against Manchester United - and providing his teammates with one assist.

And, speaking after the teenager's three goals against the Gunners - a fixture in which West Ham ran out 6-1 winners - Halajko was rather understandably full of praise for Oko-Flex, stating: "Armstrong's finishing is a real strongpoint of his. When he gets into the final third, he's a very dangerous player. We wanted to do that tonight and he managed to take his chances.

"We've got confidence in him scoring goals and taking chances, without a shadow of a doubt – that's what we brought him here to do. He's got off the mark and deserved his hat-trick, and hopefully there's more to come."

As such, while is it by no means the ideal situation, considering West Ham's "criminal" lack of action in the January transfer window, Moyes simply must unleash Oko-Flex in the second half of the season - as the Irons prodigy could well go on to play a crucial role in helping keep Antonio fit and firing for as long as possible this term.

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