West Ham United ace Kurt Zouma sends David Moyes timely reminder after Konstantinos Mavropanos arrival
West Ham United manager David Moyes made it clear all summer that he wanted to strengthen his central defence.
After a lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of Manchester United’s Harry Maguire, the Hammers settled on a move for Konstantinos Mavropanos.
As per the official West Ham website (22 August), the defender has joined the club on a five-year contract from German side Stuttgart.
His signature has left fans speculating exactly what role Moyes has in mind, but their queries have yet to be answered given how the Greek international is currently out injured with a back injury.
He should, however, return to full fitness shortly, giving Moyes a decision to make when it comes to the player’s game time in claret and blue.
It may leave current starter Kurt Zouma fearing that his minutes on the pitch may be reduced, but those fears should now be forgotten about after his superb display against Luton Town.
The centre-back played the entire 90 minutes and even found the back of the net in the 2-1 win on Friday (1 September).
It was a performance that certainly caught the eye, with WhoScored (4 September) naming the defender in the Team of the Week for Europe’s top five leagues for 1-3 September.
The 28-year-old was also named in Garth Crooks’ BBC Sport Team of the Week (3 September) following his “outstanding” performance against the Hatters.
Hammers fans will, however, still be very grateful for their club’s decision to sign Mavropanos, with the fixtures set to come thick and fast when the Europa League gets underway.
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David Moyes has a really simple solution to West Ham United’s potential AFCON woes – opinion
David Moyes has a really simple solution to West Ham United’s potential AFCON woes in the new year.
The Africa Cup of Nations begins in January and West Ham boss David Moyes faces the prospect of losing four players for the tournament for the best part of a month.
Said Benrahma (Algeria), Mohammed Kudus (Ghana), Maxwel Cornet (Ivory Coast) and Nayef Aguerd (Morocco) could be representing their countries at AFCON this winter, if they all qualify and are selected for their respective squads of course.
The real concern there is that two of those players are natural left wingers whilst Kudus can play there as well.
Pablo Fornals is obviously an option but I believe the real solution for the Hammers is staring Moyes in the face…
David Moyes has a really simple solution to West Ham United’s potential AFCON woes
After having taken four points from our opening two Premier League games, West Ham faced Brighton away.
Moyes set up with a midfield three of Edson Alvarez, James Ward-Prowse and Tomas Soucek, with Lucas Paqueta out on the left wing.
This is surely the route Moyes will take in January, when West Ham trio Benrahma, Kudus and Cornet are all away at AFCON.
Sure, we won’t play pretty football as such with that particular setup, but we will definitely be hard to beat.
The other option for Moyes is of course to sign another left winger when the January transfer window opens. I’m just not sure that will happen though, considering how notoriously difficult it is to get good value for money in January.
At least a simple option is there for Moyes to use if and when the time calls for it, and the fact that he set up that way away at Brighton shows that that particular system and starting XI is probably the one the West Ham manager will opt for when we lose the players mentioned above to AFCON.
