Sometimes when he’s on the school run, Callum Wilson plays his children videos of American motivational speaker Eric Thomas, the self-styled Hip Hop Preacher.
He tells them to remember their favourite quote and use it in their day. It’s what the West Ham striker used to do to get himself through his injury rehabs. He still scribbles some in the journal he uses to jot down his goals and an app on his phone shows him a different motivational message every day.
‘Today might not be my day, but soon it will be my day,’ is one quote belonging to the exuberant Thomas, who often has NBA legend LeBron James at the other end of his phone.
When it comes to Wilson and his hopes of keeping West Ham in the Premier League, his day has to come now. The Hammers are almost out of time.
He thought it had come last Sunday. He thought when his 95th-minute strike against Arsenal made the referee’s watch buzz, that he’d snatched what could prove the most crucial of points in their survival fight.
VAR, of course, had other ideas.
It’s do-or-die time for Callum Wilson and his West Ham team-mates when they travel to Newcastle on Sunday
Wilson remains West Ham’s biggest goal threat, as he proved when coming off the bench to score the winner against Everton last month
So, now it will have to be Newcastle on Sunday instead and a return to the ground where Wilson spent five years before joining West Ham, becoming their third-top scorer in the Premier League era.
The big question, though, is whether it will be Wilson’s day at all. The 34-year-old has not started a league game since March as his role under Nuno Espirito Santo becomes ever more peripheral. The Hammers boss only thrust him on for the last five minutes against Arsenal. When he scored the stoppage-time winner against Everton a fortnight earlier, he was on for the last nine.
The arrival of Taty Castellanos and Pablo in January, two Nuno signings, has left Wilson largely on the sidelines. Wilson and the club were even in negotiations to terminate his contract before co-owner David Sullivan, crucial in Wilson’s signing in the summer, blocked plans for him to leave.
Wilson agreed a one-year extension in March in a remarkable turnaround as other Premier League sides began to circle when it appeared he could soon be a free agent. However, Daily Mail Sport understands the striker is still likely to leave in the summer as his deal includes various release clauses, including in the event of relegation.
West Ham sources insist all contracts, including Wilson’s, will be dealt with at the end of the season once their fate is decided.
Wilson is expected to receive further interest from top-flight clubs in the summer as he bids to reach one of his biggest career ambitions – joining the Premier League 100 Club. That’s why he turned down offers from Saudi Arabia last summer. He’s now six goals away. Back-to-back hat-tricks to keep the Hammers up?
If Nuno remains in charge – the club are keen for him to stay even if they go down – it’s near impossible to see a future with Wilson in it.
‘We are going to decide the team tomorrow,’ was Nuno’s blunt reply when asked on Friday whether Wilson’s recent late shows might have earned him a start.
Only, West Ham cannot afford to bother themselves with the future, for it will be shaped completely by the now. West Ham need goals more than ever and currently have a man with 94 of them, more than any current Premier League player bar Mohammed Salah and Erling Haaland, sat on the bench. Sources have described it as a ‘frustrating’ time for Wilson and it’s not hard to see why.
Wilson’s relationship with boss Nuno Espirito Santo (right) has at times appeared strained. It is almost impossible to imagine both figures being at the club next season
When Wilson was told by the BBC after his winner against Everton that Nuno stood on the touchline with his arms folded instead of charging up the touchline in celebration, he joked: ‘It’s probably because I scored!’
In an interview with Daily Mail Sport back in November, Wilson insisted he hadn’t given up on a late World Cup charge. He’d circled the 2022 World Cup in his diary four years ago and scribbled ‘pack for Qatar’ despite his friends all thinking he’d gone mad, having not played an international game for three years. Yet, after a late flurry of goals, he made the plane. His hopes of a similar comeback this summer are gone now.
Wilson’s arrival at West Ham last August was met with a furious backlash, with fans disgruntled at the addition of yet another injury-prone striker in his 30s. They already had one in Niclas Fullkrug and had only just seen the back of Danny Ings.
And yet despite it all, when Wilson did get his chance, he began to prove those naysayers – this reporter included – wrong. He managed three goals in a run of five starts from early November, including a brace against his former club Bournemouth.
‘I don’t walk around with my eyes or ears closed,’ said Wilson in our interview. ‘Of course you hear things. For me, that’s always been a motivation, in proving people wrong, even proving myself wrong sometimes.’
Wilson showed he could be what most of his West Ham team-mates at the time were not: a competent Premier League footballer. He could hold the ball up, he could bring team-mates into play, he could get into decent scoring positions and, if chances came his way, he could score them. Big ones, too. He popped up with a stoppage-time winner at Tottenham in January, as well as the one against Everton last month.
Castellanos and Pablo give more energy and press more intently but they are yet to prove they can score the goals West Ham need to stay up. Wilson does. Castellanos has four league goals in 16 Premier League games. Pablo, for all his tireless dirty work, has none. Wilson has six, their second-highest scorer in the Premier League behind Jarrod Bowen. He’s only started 10 matches.
Wilson boasts the highest xG of all West Ham players, including Bowen, despite playing for 35 hours fewer than the Hammers skipper – proving his ability to get in goal-scoring areas.
Newcastle have conceded more late goals than any other Premier League side this season – a good omen for their supersub former striker
No side have faced more shots from fast breaks this season than Newcastle and it’s clear they can be exploited on the counter. Wilson may not offer the pace to run in behind but his link-up play can set Bowen and Crysencio Summerville free.
Half of Wilson’s goals have come off the bench. The winners against Tottenham and Everton, and what would have been the equaliser versus Arsenal, were all as an impact sub. Newcastle have conceded 20 goals in the final 15 minutes of games this season, more than any other side, so if there’s any opponent who may be vulnerable to Wilson’s late heroics, it’s his former club.
‘These two games are going to decide everything in the Premier League,’ insisted Nuno on Friday. The problem is by the time Nuno calls on Wilson at St James’ Park, it could already be too late.
Wilson has one of those inspirational quotes scrawled on his shin pad. ‘What defines us is how well we rise after falling,’ it reads. If Wilson can’t help against Newcastle, you wonder how long it will take West Ham to rise from the fall that will soon await them.
