OPINION
Saturday evening at the London Stadium was hardly a cause for celebration among West Ham fans.
The Irons put in one of their worst performances of the season as the suffered a huge blow to their hopes of European football next season with a 2-0 defeat to Everton.
Very few players in claret and blue could leave that pitch with their head held high on Saturday, but, somewhat surprisingly, Angelo Ogbonna was one of them.
Alongside Declan Rice, Lukasz Fabianski, and perhaps Aaron Cresswell, the £70,000-a-week [Spotrac] Italian was one of a minority of Irons who didn’t look absolutely terrible.
This, if we’re being honest, is a bit of a shock.
The 31-year-old has been temperamental to say the least during his time with the club, and compared to defensive partner Issa Diop, has spent most of the season looking as if he could be shipped to of the exit door come the end of the season.
Recently, however, Diop has suffered a real dip in form, and it has been Ogbonna who has looked more like the senior centre-half.
That’s probably natural given the fact that he has eight years on the Frenchman, but still, it has been a series of events that perhaps few would have seen at the start of the season.
Manuel Pellegrini faces a real headache over his selection for next Monday’s meeting with Chelsea, but you would be fairly shocked if he didn’t ring the changes after such a lacklustre display.
One thing is for sure, however, Ogbonna must start, and he has surely jumped put the pecking order after the Everton debacle.
