D Day for Lopetegui – and there have been a few of those recently – as West Ham’s head coach seeks to buy himself a little bit of breathing space with another victory, this time away at the south coast against Bournemouth. Another Monday night game- where the Hammers have been at their best this season.
Should he succeed, West Ham fans might actually start to believe that he has a future beyond the end of December. Lose, and the barrage of noise demanding his removal will return with added venom. There are key choices that the Coach needs to take regarding team selection as change is forced upon the squad.
Emerson Palmieri is suspended for the game having picked up his fifth yellow card in the Wolves match. Lopetegui has to decide whether to call on his veteran vice captain Aaron Cresswell as a like for like left back replacement or whether to re-jig his back line around using Aaron Wan-Bissaka on the left.
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Truth be told, Wan Bissaka has looked awesome in both left and right defensive positions, so Cresswell probably won’t be holding his breath expecting a starting berth. However it does throw up the more intriguing question: Who will Lopegeui start on the right if Wan-Bissaka moves across? Vlad Coufal is the natural right-back but remember he didn’t get the nod against Brentford, the head coach choosing Konstantinos Mavropanos as an emergency right back leaving Coufal unused on the bench.
Indeed, bbc.com were full of praise for Mavropanos the right back, suggesting :”West Ham were the better side in the second half, and possibly should have gone on to win the game. It’s no coincidence that their improvement in the second half came after Mavropanos [at right back] was introduced.”
Noteworthy especially since the same report confirms the Mavropanos has only started in that position four times in his whole career.
The Leicester game last week, however, showed Coufal at his least effective, getting substituted at 60 minutes as he failed to complete a single dribble and none of his three crosses actually hit a Hammers’ player.
Whilst Mavropanos can carry the ball, he’s surely a less ‘conventional’ choice to be in the starting line-up. Lopetegui himself said after the Greek’s right back cameo that :I’d never seen him play there…but he was ready, and he played very well.”
Whichever option Lopetegui goes for, don’t bet against a re-jig mid way through the game with Cresswell appearing as a conventional left-back and Wan-Bissaka reverting to the right hand side to counter Bournemouth’s main pacy wingers.