My Vote For West Ham’s ‘Hammer Of The Year’

My ‘Hammer of the Year’ is Mohamed Diame. It was a choice between two players for me, Diame and Winston Reid. I will explain why I chose Diame later. Firstly I will explain why I discounted other candidates (but no doubt a few will disagree with my opinion as per usual).

 

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Other candidates that have been regularly thrown around as potential winners are Joey O’Brien and James Collins. Neither of them have been anywhere near as good as Diame or Reid. Collins single handedly has lost us 3 games this season, granted this second half of the season he has performed well but he is not HOTY material and has relied on Guy Demel covering him too many times this season (which some fans failed to notice and blamed Demel for Collins’ mistakes).

Joey O’Brien, whilst a popular figure, does very little at left/right back. His defensive work is solid but he gets a lot of help from Reid when he is caught out of position. He doesn’t light up the world as an attacker but he has scored 2 goals and 3 assists which makes him a more useful attacking force than 10 million pound Jarvis. I have been impressed with Joey O’Brien but I believe he is just a good squad player to have and his performances haven’t warranted HOTY talk when compared with Reid and Diame.

Now, why didn’t I choose Reid? In a team where the tactic 90% of the time is to go out there and not lose it is easier to get noticed when you do a good job as a defender (as it is just as easy to get noticed if you do a bad job). Winston Reid has been inspirational at the back but he has been given the chance to be inspirational at the back. Our tactics heavily rely on good defensive performances and Reid has been the spearhead of our good defensive work. In my opinion he should be club captain as he is not only good at what he does, he doesn’t scream at his teammates and the referee for 90 minutes when he has been given the armband, things that can’t be said about Kevin Nolan. Reid has been incredible but he has had help from his fellow back 4 members and whilst he has been the most consistent performer and is the standout defender of the year I think Diame deserves it more. Having said that, if Reid wins I would be just as happy as if Diame does.

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Mohamed Diame has been our standout midfielder. He is a more creative attacking force than Kevin Nolan whilst covering Nolan’s back when he lazes about in offside positions. He is also a defensive beast, giving him the nickname of ‘The Tank’. Yes he may have scored only 2 goals compared to Nolan’s 6 but Diame is a box to box midfielder not a 2^nd striker/useless loaf. In midfield he is our only creative, attacking outlet. Noble is a very safe defensive midfielder, he does the job he is told to do whilst Nolan can’t seem to pick out a pass at all which leaves it all on the shoulders of Diame and he has done his best. When Vaz Te or Collison have played in the Nolan role Diame has been able to relax and play his game as he has not been the only attacking outlet but unfortunately there has been precious few opportunities for us to see that combination.

On Sunday, Diame jinked through 5 Liverpool players before nearly scoring what would have been a world class goal. He has looked to be our only top class player this season out of our midfielders and attackers. It’s easy to get noticed as a defender in our side because that is all we do, defend, but for Diame to get noticed for his defensive qualities and his attacking prowess is what sealed the deal for him to win HOTY. He has played with very few options around him due to our negativity and has had to a lot of attacking himself. When he got injured, we slumped, when he came back we started to improve again. We will do very well to hold on to Diame in the summer, I expect we won’t but if we didn’t have him in the team this year, I doubt we would be where we are in the table, whereas Reid has James Tomkins behind him who proved what he can do against Liverpool.

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I am sure I will have the usual Big Sam brigade finding one reason or another to disagree with me but that is who I think should win HOTY. It was a close call between Diame and Reid and if either of them win I will be happy but Diame gets my vote due to the nature of the way we play and how much harder it has been for him to do what he has got noticed for. Mohamed Diame is a fantastic footballer and has been my standout player of the season, let me know what you think.