**Manchester City loanee Divine Mukasa scored a brace as West Ham beat Wolves 4-2.**
Divine Mukasa arrived at West Ham to a lot of surprise: one because it came out of nowhere, and two because he was returning to the club; he spent a decade in the academy before leaving at sixteen to join City.
He was welcomed because of his love for the club, but also because he was an attacking midfielder. After selling Paqueta, Nuno was forced into playing two up front because there were no options for the number ten position; Mukasa now provides us with that.
The nineteen-year-old played as a number ten against Southampton last week and looked pretty good. However, against Wolves last night, he played in a deeper role, in a midfield pivot almost alongside Engels.
In his 69 minutes on the pitch at the London Stadium, he scored twice, completed 97% of his passes, 100% of his long passes, and made two tackles and three recoveries.
West Ham have been struggling to break down sitting defences this season so far; this Wolves side was far from that, but the changes Nuno made did improve our attack, and I think that would continue against Derby on Saturday should Nuno keep it the same.
One of the reasons the Hammers have struggled to break down sitting defences this season has been because of the midfield. Having players with a lack of quality on the ball, a lack of technical ability, like Mohammed Kante in that midfield two, when you’re dominating the ball, just doesn’t work.
We saw exactly that in the Charlton and Watford matches; the Frenchman was replaced by Lewis Orford in both matches, at half-time and on the hour mark respectively.
Now, it would’ve made sense to just start Orford over Kante against Wolves last night to have someone who can move the ball more quickly and decisively to start attacks.
However, for whatever reason, Nuno decided to drop Orford from the squad completely and start Divine Mukasa in that deeper role alongside Arne Engels, and it worked; the midfield was functional, and Engels looked a whole lot better than he has in previous matches.
We didn’t dominate the midfield by any means; Wolves had 57% possession, and Mukasa and Engels only completed 67 passes combined, but it was effective, and we’ve not seen that much so far this campaign.
The Derby game on Saturday and a lot of the games coming up are going to be different, though; like Charlton did a lot of teams are going to sit off of us and let us attack them. So, if we continue with this midfield, Engels and Mukasa are going to have a lot more of the ball and have a lot more responsibility on their shoulders to create chances. And I really think this midfield duo could do it.
Not only will they be a lot better as a duo at splitting defences and making decisive passes than having a player like Kante in there. They also offer creativity in other ways.
We saw that Mukasa can shoot; that opening goal, a sweet strike off the crossbar and in with his weak foot from outside the box, was incredible. Then with his second goal, he probably had better options for a pass, but he shot from distance and somehow deflected into the back of the net. You need people who are happy to shoot against deep defences if you’re struggling to break it down.
Also, Engels loves to drop a bit and get into space to whip a cross into the back post; we’ve seen how effective his corners can be with that technique, but also on a couple of occasions we did see it in open play. Nothing came of it on Tuesday, but if the likes of Bowen, Taty, and Piroe can get on Engels’ wavelength, that’s another way we could break down a defence.
Remember early days Antonio at Upton Park scoring all those headers at the back post, with the weapon that is Engels’ right foot, we could be seeing Bowen scoring a lot of goals like that.