OPINION
After arriving at the London Stadium last summer, Fabian Balbuena has played 20 games so far for the Hammers.
Saturday’s fixture at home to Leicester wasn’t one of his best performances of the season, after the Paraguay-born defender was at fault for one of the goals in the 2-2 draw.
Initially, Balbuena was performing pretty solidly. The 27-year old certainly didn’t give Jamie Vardy much to work with in the first half, however it was the later stages of the game which ended up letting him down.
Jamie Vardy managed to get himself ahead of the defender around the hour mark, scoring the equaliser much to the disappointment of the Hammers faithful.
Whatever happened at half time, it didn’t work for Balbuena. The central defender just seemed to lose his bearings in the second half, which inevitably lead to the first equaliser to make it 1-1.
Towards the end of the game, in the last 20 minutes or so, Balbuena seemed to be seriously hanging on, much like the rest of the West Ham players.
This resulted in a late second equaliser at the hands of Harvey Barnes, which was only his first goal of this Premier League campaign.
This performance will certainly give Manuel Pellegrini some thinking to do ahead of West Ham’s next fixture, where they face Spurs in a London derby next Saturday.
It wouldn’t be too surprising is Balbuena was to be dropped ahead of next Saturday’s game, as Pellegrini will certainly have to go back to the drawing board after a usually reliable player like the Paraguayan was woeful against the Foxes.
