Will Yossi Benayoun’s return spark West Ham creativity?

West Ham signed mercurial Israeli midfielder Yossi Benayoun from Chelsea on a season long loan for his second spell at The Boleyn Ground on transfer deadline day.

When we signed Yossi the first time around there was a lot of fans wondering how he would compare with former West Ham favourite and fellow Israeli Eyal Berkovic. Alan Pardew who was West Ham’s manager at the time was raving about his new signings ability to unlock defences when teams were sitting deep.

Benayoun had a productive first season for West Ham scoring 5 goals in the Premier League and contributing a further 8 Premier League assists.

I think Benayoun’s stand out performance for me was the FA Cup final against Liverpool in 2005-2006 which ended 3-3, he was a magician that day and controlled the midfield and was constantly probing Liverpool’s defence and did not deserve to be on the losing end that day.

Footballing Nomad

Yossi moved on from West Ham to Liverpool in 2007, he continued his excellent form and had a great understanding with Steven Gerrard in the middle of the park and made a number of significant contributions including a hat trick against Burnley in the Premier League. Benayoun also remains the only player to have scored Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup hat tricks.

Benayoun then moved on to Chelsea in 2010 where I don’t think he ever really settled and only made a handful of appearances before being farmed out to Arsenal for the duration of the 2011 campaign where he made 19 appearances scoring 4 goals.

Benny Confirms West Ham Return

Yossi has returned to West Ham United and became our eleventh summer signing on transfer deadline day, he has joined on a season long loan and I look forward to him adding some spark and creativity to our attack, Benny was a firm favourite of mine during his first spell at the club and I hope Sam Allardyce gives him a starting berth replacing the out of form Vaz Te.

I am very pleased about Yossi’s return as I am sure you can tell and am looking forward to seeing some silky skills on show, I think a front three of Jarvis, Carroll and Benayoun will prove to be very exciting!

I will leave you with a clip of a cheeky Yossi goal during his Chelsea time which I hope he can repeat for the mighty Hammers!