OPINION
West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini needs time to get things right at the club but his decision to drop Ryan Fredericks for the game against Bournemouth on Saturday was wide of the mark.
The right-back who has blistering pace was completely left out of the Hammers squad for the game against the Cherries with his side going on to suffer a 2-1 defeat without him.
Reliable Hammers insider ExWHUemployee on shared Twitter that Fredericks was not in the squad for the game against Eddie Howe’s side for tactical reasons not because he has suffered any form on injury in mid-week.
Nope not selected, same with rice https://t.co/o4lcPu6N8o
— ExWHUEmployee (@ExWHUEmployee) August 18, 2018
Tactical, along with rice and Antonio. https://t.co/Aspn3z61NQ
— ExWHUEmployee (@ExWHUEmployee) August 18, 2018
The 25-year-old Hammers speed demon featured in his side’s Premier League opener against Liverpool and while he did struggle in that game, he didn’t deserve to be completely dropped as a result of it.
That was Fredericks’ first game in England’s top-flight and he was coming up against one of the league’s most, if not the most, dangerous attacks so it was hardly fair to judge him on that performance.
Especially as several of his teammates also submitted displays they’d rather forget.
It’s clear that Fredericks has all the attributes needed to be a success story in the Premier League for the Hammers but he’s only going to learn how to excel in this division by regularly being involved.
If Pellegrini had opted to drop the 25-year-old to the bench for the game against Bournemouth then at least there would have been a chance of him coming on to register some minutes in the division in order to continue to learn about the Premier League.
Also given Frederick’s amazing pace, he actually may have been able to help the Hammers’ achieve a better result against the Cherries as they wouldn’t been able to handle him bursting down the flank.
Therefore this all means that Pellegrini was wrong to completely axe Fredericks on Saturday as it helped no one as the player wouldn’t have improved from his spell on the sideline and the team didn’t exactly shine without him.
