West Ham star was their best signing since Bowen, now he’s ‘chaotic’

Sunday afternoon was just another reminder that it was going to be a long and brutal season for West Ham United.

Nuno Espírito Santo’s side have been in fairly reasonable form over the past two months, losing just two of their previous seven matches.

However, defeat against Aston Villa at the weekend left the East Londoners in the relegation zone, three points behind 17th-placed Leeds United.

It wasn’t a horror show against the Villans, but a few players let the fans down, including someone who at one point looked like he could be West Ham’s best signing since Jarrod Bowen.

West Ham’s best players against Villa

Let’s start with the positive: who played well for West Ham on Sunday afternoon?

Well, despite the result, it was another brilliant performance from Mateus Fernandes, who not only opened the scoring in the first minute, but also posed a constant threat in the middle of the park.

For example, during his 90 minutes of action, the Portuguese dynamo made 68 touches, recovered the ball 11 times, made one interception and completed 48 passes, including 25 in Villa’s half.

Alongside him, in the middle of the park, was also another promising performance from Freddie Potts.

The academy ace was in possession, constantly winning the ball and completing 96% of his 45 pass attempts.

Furthermore, it was his failed attempt that led to Bowen’s goal.

The former Hull City star was another of the host team’s best players on the day, as as well as his goal he completed two dribbles, played a key pass and generally looked a threat.

However, while these three starters put in a good shift against the Villans, several were disappointing, including one player who looked like an incredible signing not too long ago.

The West Ham star who looked like the best signing since Bowen

If there were some poor performances on Sunday, the most disappointing, and potentially the most worrying, came from El Hadji Malick Diouf.

The reason is that it wasn’t that long ago that the former Slavia Prague star looked like one of West Ham’s best signings in a very long time.

During the first two months of the season, his explosive, marauding runs across the field were one of the few truly exciting aspects of the Hammers.

Furthermore, even if he was not always successful, the Senegalese international often fired a nasty cross at the end of his moves on the pitch.

It is this ability to get the ball into dangerous areas that has allowed him to collect three assists in the first five league matches of the season.

What was so impressive was that even though he didn’t get an assist, his crosses still led to goals, as was the case against Everton in Nuno’s first game in charge.

At this stage it looked like the Hammers had a star in the making, so much so that Sky Sports’ Joe Thomlinson claimed he was “one of the finds of the season”.

Unfortunately, since then, the offensive production has all but dried up, with no more assists or goals added to his total. In fact, according to Understat, he’s over his expected assist number by 2.32.

This lack of offensive power wouldn’t be such a problem if he were a reliable defender, but that’s not the case, and over the last few months he’s been caught out on several occasions.

For example, in commentary on 5 Live, Chris Sutton described the 20-year-old’s defending for Jacob Murphy’s goal for Newcastle United as “pretty chaotic”.

The former Slaiva star was also mediocre on Sunday, winning just 50 percent of his tackles, losing the ball nine times, losing five of eight ground duels and committing two fouls.

Ultimately, there is still time for Diouf to recover; he has the talent, but as things stand he looks like a growing problem for West Ham.

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