**Alphonse Areola’s performance vs Newcastle has gone well under the radar, but his improvement hasn’t gone unnoticed**.
It feels like every single West Ham player has been heavily praised for their performance against Newcastle United on Sunday except France international goalkeeper Alphonse Areola, not becase he wasn’t bad, but because he didn’t have loads to do, which is rare for a West Ham keeper as of late.
Considering goalkeeper has been one of our biggest problems this season you’d think Areola would be getting a lot more praise, but because the defence played so well and was so improved, the plaudits have mainly been focused on Jean-Clair Todibo and Maximilian Kilman.
After being beaten by Jacob Murphy three minutes in, the world cup winner was faultless between the sticks. He denied Murphy again a few minutes later from a similar position, before getting down low to deny Joelinton and Anthony Gordon before the break.
Not only did he make a few saves, his distribution was decent, he was claiming balls into the box and he was imposing in the box for corners. He also mastered the dark arts towards the end of the match when we were up by one. He appeared to go down with cramp in the closing stages, a great way to run the clock down because the keeper can’t book him for time-wasting, it may be the first every time a goalkeeper has got cramp.
But overall it was a really solid performance from the 23-year-old and exactly what we need at the back at the moment, calmness, no panic or worry that we’re going to concede every time a cross comes into the box, with Hermansen that’s exactly how we felt. But Areola along with the improved performances of Kilman and Todibo really solidified our defence.