West Ham need key midfielder to recover

While West Ham fans were complaining about the performance of the match against Bournemouth (1:1), against Manchester United the performance on the pitch was better than the final result (0:3). David Moyes’ charges paid mainly for the missed chances in the opener.

West Ham entered the match against Manchester well, with two chances missed by Tomas Soucek. The Czech midfielder was the most dangerous player for the visitors before Rasmus Hojlund scored the opening goal. After that, some stress fell off the home side and the game settled down.

The first goal was the decider for West Ham

“It’s a strange feeling to lose when we are the better team,” wrote user Leh in a liked comment under West Ham’s Instagram post. True, talking about dominance when you lose 0:3 is controversial to say the least. But West Ham were better from the off.

The team has been helped by the return of Vladimir Coufal to the lineup. And the midfield has improved, among other things. If the loss to Manchester City showed David Moyes anything, it’s that James Ward-Prowse definitely belongs in the middle and is a shame on the fringes.

But it all seemed to be broken by Rasmus Hojlund’s first goal. The Red Devils players then had their legs untied, some great luck in the end to be mentioned. Especially with the second goal, Lukasz Fabianski could not do anything. Because the ball was crossed in front of him by a defensive player.

Two keys to one treasure

Ahead of the match with Bournemouth, fans were excited about the return of offensive mainstay Mohammed Kudus from the AFCON. After two games, it can be argued that the Ghanaian speedster is not having that much of an impact on the team without his favourite partner Lucas Paqueta.

The best indication of the interplay between the two offensive players is the December game against Wolverhampton, in which Paqueta assisted Kudus twice, essentially blindly. They are both technical players, they get along well on the right side and complement each other perfectly. But Kudus hasn’t shown much in two games without the injured Brazilian.

“The score does not correspond to the game. We didn’t take decent chances, we weren’t clinical, 21 shots and no goals. I must mention that we need Paqueta as soon as possible,” aptly assessed the situation supporter David.

Source: Instagram