West Ham’s El Hadji Malick Diouf grabbed his first-ever international goal as Senegal cruised to a whopping 8-0 win over Kenya in a friendly yesterday.
The young defender struck in the 13th minute to double Senegal’s lead in Türkiye, after Nicolas Jackson had opened the scoring early on. Diouf wasn’t finished there, though, as he also registered an assist in a game where, let’s be honest, it was probably harder not to get one.
Jackson later added a second, while Sadio Mané hit a stunning hat-trick to underline Senegal’s dominance. Ibrahim Mbaye and Cherif Ndiaye also got on the scoresheet as Les Lions de la Téranga completely overwhelmed their opponents.
AFCON call-ups leave West Ham short at full-back
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Diouf is due to leave West Ham at the end of December to join up with his country for the African Cup of Nations and could be missing for as long as two weeks. Ordinarily, this would be easy enough to cover for the Hammers, but with Aaron Wan-Bissaka also attending AFCON with Congo, Nuno is set to lose both of his first-choice full-backs.
Kyle Walker-Peters can cover both flanks but, unless he’s managed to clone himself, presumably not at the same time. Therefore, recent reports linking West Ham with a loan move for a full-back probably make sense.