Ipswich Town will hope Al-Hamadi proves more worth than previous AFC Wimbledon deal: View | OneFootball

With Ipswich Town well in the race for promotion to the Premier League when the January transfer window arrived, it was only natural that the Tractor Boys would look to strengthen.

In the end, the club brought in four new players throughout the month, with three players arriving on loan, and one permanently.

Arriving from Brighton and AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League, Jeremy Sarmiento and Kieffer Moore signed on the dotted line until the end of the campaign, whilst Lewis Travis joined on loan from Championship outfit Blackburn Rovers.

The club's only permanent deal of the window was snapping up striker Ali Al-Hamadi.

The Iranian international had been in fine form this campaign for AFC Wimbledon, alerting plenty of Championship clubs to his services.

However, it was to be Ipswich Town who won the race for his signature, paying just over £1 million initially, though that figure could go much higher in add-ons, according to the EADT.

Of course, this is not the first time that Ipswich Town have decided to buy a promising striker that has performed well at AFC Wimbledon.

Back in 2021, for example, the Tractor Boys snapped up ex-Dons forward Joe Pigott on a free transfer following the expiry of his contract with AFC Wimbledon.

Like Al-Hamadi, Pigott had a fantastic goalscoring record when arriving at Portman Road. For example, in 2020/21, the striker had netted 22 goals in all competitions, with 20 of these coming in League One.

What made that tally even more impressive is that Pigott produced those goals in a side that finished 19th in the league standings and narrowly avoided relegation.

18 strikes in all competitions that campaign.

Despite the above, when it came to playing for Ipswich Town, Pigott failed to repeat the goalscoring exploits he had shown at AFC Wimbledon.

In his first season at Portman Road, for example, the forward scored just three goals, appearing in 29 fixtures for the club across all competitions that season.

Having been signed by Paul Cook, and with Kieran McKenna having taken charge in December 2021, by the end of his first season, Pigott was out of favour, and would go on to depart Ipswich on loan for Portsmouth that summer.

Pigott, though, only managed seven goals at Portsmouth last season, and with Ipswich promoted at the end of last season, this summer, the striker was allowed to leave on a free transfer, eventually joining Leyton Orient.

Ipswich will have Al-Hamadi hope

Given how Pigott's time at Ipswich worked out, the club will certainly be hoping that their deal with an AFC Wimbledon talent this time around works out much better.

Indeed, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic it will do so, too.

For example, whilst Pigott was in his late 20's at the time of his move to Ipswich, Al-Hamadi's career is just getting going, with the forward 22 and still having plenty of time to improve.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the Iranian international is already showing glimpses of what he can do at Ipswich.

Naturally being eased in gently jumping up from League Two into a Championship promotion race, Al-Hamadi has featured mostly from the bench for the Tractor Boys so far, but even so, has managed to score double Pigott's league goal tally from his first campaign at Portman Road.

With Ipswich embroiled in a promotion race, Al-Hamadi may yet score more goals, and important ones, too.