As West Ham start to chalk up clean sheets, the pressure on those outside the starting eleven – particularly in the defence – stars to grow.
With West Ham again keeping the ball out of their own net yesterday- especially against an eighth place Bournemouth side in the middle of a successful streak – it is going to get harder for benched players to break back into what is becoming a solid defensive side.
The old maxim of ‘don’t change a winning side‘ probably applies just as well to ‘don’t change your defence when they’re keeping clean sheets.’
For Maximilian Kilman and Jean Clair Todibo just now the opportunities to return look likely to be limited to covering for injuries. Mavropanos and loanee Disasi were again awesome yesterday.
Another of the much improved quartet is El Hadji Malick Diouf who appears to have returned from the AFCON championships with increased self-belief and confidence, which in its turn doesn’t bode well for Ollie Scarles who at this rate, will find his first team opportunities limited.
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Diouf has been awesome since AFCON
It had seemed the case that Scarles was rated higher defensively, Diouf the better attacking player.
However, the stats from yesterday’s Bournemouth game make interesting reading for Malick Diouf: As per sofascore’s ratings, The Senegalse produced a top tier defensive display, winning 82% of his ground duels and 67% of his aerial duels: Plus of course the last ditch block Diouf made late in the game certainly prevented West Ham going behind.
Scarles will struggle to get into the side with Diouf in this form: Nuno can feel lucky to have two young, talented defenders offering so much at a time when the whole defence is starting to gel.
For Scarles, for the time being it would seem the best he can hope for is likely to come in the shape of an extended FA Cup run to get minutes in the starting line up.