Premier League

Thompson destroys Masuaku

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Phil Thompson pointed his finger at West Ham defender Arthur Masuaku when explaining how Manchester City were able to emerge from the London Stadium with a 4-0 win.

The Sky Sports pundit labelled the 25-year-old’s defending as absolutely dreadful and shared that David Silva, Raheem Sterling as well as Leroy Sane’s ability to get goals on Saturday had to at least be put down a little to the performance of the Hammers’ left-back.

Thompson then proceeded to state that Manuel Pellegrini was right to haul Masuaku off at half-time in order to replace him with Aaron Cresswell.

“Some of the stuff from Manchester City was quite outstanding, the way they move the ball around and like all the S’s have scored, Silva, Sterling, Sane twice and they were quite exceptional,” said the pundit on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday (November 24, 17:23).

“Sane has come in got two, Sterling two assists and a goal, you’d have to put it little bit down to Masuaku’s absolutely dreadful defending as a full-back.

“And he got hauled off at half-time quite rightly so and Cresswell came on.”

OPINION

Masuaku is going to get heavily criticised for his display against Man City on Saturday and perhaps should stay away from reading any reports on the game. The left-back had a nightmare against Pep Guardiola’s team and if anything Pellegrini should have brought him off the pitch sooner. It’s unclear why the Hammers boss opted to start the DR Congo international ahead of Cresswell on Saturday but clearly in hindsight he made the wrong decision. It’s hard to disagree with Thompson that Masuaku’s defending was dreadful and it’s about time he wasn’t regularly deployed at left-back. The 25-year-old has been consistently exposed this season in his outings and while he is promising when bursting forward, the Hammers’ defence can’t carry him in games as other teams know he is a weakness. It seems Pellegrini should either move the player further up the field in order to start him as a winger or bin him in January in order to bring in a replacement.

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