By Louis Nixon
**Callum Wilson came on for Taty Castellenos against Manchester United due to Taty being tired, and whilst Wilson’s fresh legs were much appreciated, they aren’t exactly what the Hammers needed.**
Wilson is West Ham’s impact striker. He’s the player you bring on because you know that he can come on and nick a goal when required, but today Pablo’s appearance was massively missed, seeing as he was the profile that we needed to bring on tonight, not Callum Wilson.
It’s not meant to say that Wilson was poor; it’s just not what the Hammers needed in that given moment in time. Bringing on Wilson effectively loses the Hammers a man in defence.
Taty Castellenos runs so much for Nuno’s side that we’ve almost factored him in as a midfield player that chases whilst we are defending, therefore allowing other players to drop deeper forming a stronger defence, but the problem that we ran into is that Taty was too tired to continue, and Wilson was the only option that we had.
Against Chelsea, Pablo was told to stop running so much by Paco. Seeing as he wanted him to last longer on the field, he didn’t want him to run himself into the ground straight away and that is exactly what we could’ve done with tonight. Wilson is someone who stays forward and picks up the ball in a shooting position and his job is to put the ball into the back of the net. He is a talisman! That’s his job… but he doesn’t track back; he cannot run to the levels others can, and we really missed that cutting-edge energy tonight.
This isn’t to blame Wilson, we knew what we were bringing on, it’s more based around what could’ve been if we still had Pablo to substitute on instead… besides, up until the last minute the tactic would’ve worked, but the heartbreak at the end will always produce thoughts of what could’ve or should’ve been done, but that’s the pain of Football and hindsight.
Hopefully, West Ham’s variety will be open for their upcoming Premier League games in Nuno’s attempt to continue to pull West Ham closer to safety, but all eyes are now peeled towards the nervous Nottingham Forest vs Wolves game tomorrow night.