By Louis Nixon
**Max Kilman has come under a lot of scrutiny regarding his performances since he signed for West Ham last season, but has that changed under his old boss?**
After being signed for an initial £40 million price tag, which staggered the fanbase, Max Kilman had a lot to live up to and unfortunately, he’s not been able to complete that. His numerous moments of rash decisions or lack of concentration in recent periods have also proved costly, emphasising that a change hasn’t taken place between last season and now, regardless of the manager change.
The Hammers’ overall campaign last year was seen as a disappointment all over; no one was happy with the team and the results. Come December, we all already knew that the season was over and we just had to see out the campaign, hoping not to go down, so to have your first season be seen in that light by the fans won’t ever provoke a positive opinion.
With the beginning of this season, we shipped in an alarming 14 goals within just four matches, which truly conveyed to most how poor the defence was, in which Kilman became the standout.
Under Nuno, many anticipated a new life; Nuno was said to like Kilman’s character, and using him throughout his time at Wolves, we’d all hoped that he could bring out a side of Kilman we’d yet to see consistently… however, that’s not yet transpired.
Across the Arsenal, Brentford and Leeds match, Kilman made a grand total of zero tackles, which is utterly bizarre because we lost all three and he played every minute across those matches.
In further addition to this, despite the results we’ve had across the last two weeks, Kilman’s been a cause for concern for both, as during the Newcastle game, he frantically ran forward to where a winger would be as he tried to chase the ball, which led to Newcastle being able to counter us and find a gap to score their opener.
For the Burnley match, their opener was also scored due to Kilman losing track of the man he’s meant to mark, and by the time he reacted, the ball had already been won by the striker.
Fortunately for Kilman, he was bailed out of being further embarrassed by these moments, seeing as we’d go on to win both fixtures, but under three managers now Kilman’s looked underwhelming and eventually his persistent errors will unfortunately cost the club even further.