Zan Vipotnik Swansea struggles explained - West Ham could dodge £20m target on Saturday

West Ham United are facing an early test of their Championship title ambitions away at league leaders Swansea City on Saturday.

And if the Hammers’ former technical director had his way, Zan Vipotnik would be wearing claret and blue, potentially lining up against his old employers for the first time. Hammers News revealed that, a few months before his eventual departure, Max Hahn had identified Vipotnik as his dream centre-forward signing at West Ham United.

Zan ‘the Viper’ Vipotnik would claim the Championship Golden Boot with 23 goals from just 35 starts, after all.

But by the time September arrived, the silky Slovenian was still a Swansea player. Few would have envisaged that in the spring.

Even without Hahn, who had since been appointed as the CEO of Swedish outfit Djurgardens, West Ham planned to make a move for Vipotnik after missing out on Troy Parrott to Real Betis. Nils Koppen would not pick up where his predecessor left off, though. Nuno Espirito Santo wanted Joel Piroe, he got Joel Piroe, and the message out of South Wales suggested that Vipotnik was in no rush to leave The Swans anyway.

Perhaps the former Bordeaux poacher could see this coming. Ahead of Saturday’s meeting, Swansea are four points and two places ahead of West Ham in third. Maybe he thought that he didn’t have to change clubs in order to secure himself a spot in the Premier League.

But if the sight of Swansea leading the promotion charge ten games in came as a shock, so has Vipotnik’s newly-reduced role.

The £20 million-rated frontman has only started three of Swansea’s first ten Championship matches. Of course, he’s still found the time to score two goals in just 388 minutes. On Saturday though, West Ham’s defensive pairing of Konstantinos Mavropanos and Max Kilman are likely to find themselves face-to-face not with Vipotnik, but with Matos’ new first-choice; Adam Idah.

“I like a lot both players,” Matos said in September. “Both offer different things, both are working hard for the team.”

Matos was reluctant to play favourites, but his team selection speaks volumes. Idah has started seven of the last eight Championship matches. And though Vipotnik made a rare appearance in the XI in midweek – Swansea briefly went seven points clear of West Ham thanks to Ronald’s last-minute winner at Millwall – a rested Idah is expected to reclaim his place when the Hammers cross the border.

The feeling is that Vipotnik, while seemingly content enough to stick around for another season, was a man distracted by a summer of relentless speculation. And in truth, the excellent form of Idah since then – four goals in seven starts – has given Matos no reason to change a winning system.

Accusations of last season being ‘flash in the pan’ will also inevitably start to swirl. Vipotnik overperformed his XG numbers emphatically for Swansea in 2025/26.

Twenty-three goals from an XG of 13, compared to his current tally of two from an XG of 2.3. Is that really sustainable? Time will tell, presumably.

In a parallel universe out there somewhere, Hahn succeeded in bringing Vipotnik to West Ham. But in our reality, as the teams sitting first and third lock horns on Saturday, Vipotnik is still a Swansea player but no longer a Swansea starter.