**West Ham United are officially through to Round Five of the FA Cup after beating Burton in extra-time, but throughout the 120 minutes, a variety of defending was witnessed.**
Nuno Espirito Santo has done it! West Ham now find themselves in the last 16 of the FA Cup, something of which Hammers fans haven’t had the feeling of since the 202/23 campaign, where they made it to the fifth round before crashing out with a 3-1 loss to Manchester United.
However, the result was far from clinical or easy and definitely West Ham experienced their moments of luck throughout the game. The first moment of luck came through Mavropanos’ tackle, where he barged the forward in the back in which the referee decided not to punish him for and upon the replay, if that was in the Premier League, a penalty would’ve been given. Not to mention, barring the red card for Freddie Potts, the referee was incredibly generous to West Ham specfically the likes of Max Kilman, who at one point blatantly kicked their player, yet not even a foul was awarded.
Both Max Kilman and Mavropanos had their moments of chaos throughout the 120 minutes, but Dinos, who wore the armband, deserves his praise as towards the end of the game when the Hammers only had 10 men, he really stepped up to the plate and was winning everything he needed to.
Praise should also be provided to the likes of Axel Disasi who came on for the last 15 minutes of the game and despite the appearence being short lived, it proved to be divident given how much of an ariel and defence impact he brought the squad, it was like having a French wall, no one was getting around him and every ball was cleared without grace.
Compliments can also be handed towards the wingbacks in Ollie Scarles and Walker-Peters as the pair looked much better in the second half compared to the first. At the beginning of the game, they both looked poor and weren’t glued within the transition, yet towards the end, the pair stepped up and became the threatening outlets down the wing when required.
A handful of positives but also a world of negatives, it’s certainly clear to see why we play with Mavropanos, Disasi, Diouf and Wan-Bissaka as our Premier League defence, which, despite a clean sheet being achieved, the truth is that the face appears a lot better than the reality was.
Another clean sheet achieved, so Nuno’s side have to take the positives and move on to what is a vital Premier League game next up.