6th December 2025 Daniel Luker (@danielluker_)
By Louis Nixon
Against Manchester United on Thursday night, the midfield was the real standout, with Magassa scoring and winning POTM, with Potts plus Fernandes both having superb performances.
Similar to Liverpool, the Hammers started with a midfield of the trio, but the underwhelming performance at the London Stadium sparked Nuno to make a change against United, and that was to place all three of the named midfielders into the centre of the pitch due to Paqueta’s absence, which proved to work a treat when it came to defending and attacking.
The holding midfield performance from Potts allowed Fernandes to linger around the middle of the pitch whilst looking for a way to push the ball forward. Meanwhile, Magassa chased down every ball he could and threw himself at the ball for 90 minutes, which he proved to cause Amorim nightmares.
It’s been a very long time since Hammers fans have seen a midfield performance as good as the one on Thursday night, and it was miraculous to see that it was through three young midfielders who have an average age of 21.7 between them.
Magassa has taken the headlines and well dservedly too, but certain moments from Potts also crucially have to be highlted, the one in particular being his last ditch slide tackle as United were in on goal proved to be pivital for the game, whilst Fernandes managed to be the glue to the remainder of the midfield, as he has been throughout the past few matches.
Going forward, regardless of who is and isn’t available, those three midfielders simply have to start, and they could prove to be the highlight of our season and the way to be dragged out of the pertrifying drop zone which we’re currently in.
We have an extremely rough set of fixtures heading into Christmas and points have to be picked up if we want to bolster our chances of staying up, but I believe Nuno has managed to find himself a reborn midfield, which can put us in a much better place than we currently are in.