Tony Cascarino claimed Manchester City attacker Riyad Mahrez took West Ham defender Aaron Cresswell to pieces on Saturday.
The pundit stated that Mahrez “ruined” the Hammers left-back during Man City’s emphatic 5-0 win over Manuel Pellegrini’s side at the London Stadium.
“I think Cresswell got absolutely took to pieces by Mahrez yesterday,” said Cascarino on talkSPORT (6:24am, Sunday, August 11th).
“He just ruined him.”
After losing their first Premier League game of the season, West Ham are set to search for their first league points of the season when they play Brighton next Saturday.
OPINION
Is anyone surprised that Cascarino thinks Cresswell was basically torn apart by Mahrez on Saturday? Surely not, as the Hammers left-back did seem to have a shocker against the Premier League champions. The only question mark you can have about Cascarino’s opinion is that it wasn’t just Mahrez that caused Cresswell’s nightmares, as Kyle Walker took advantage of the left-back’s struggles as well. Walker constantly charged past Cresswell, and you have to wonder if Pellegrini will stick by the English defender for the upcoming game with Brighton. Cresswell made only one tackle against Man City, though he did win that to have a misleading 100% tackle success rate, and that sums up his performance (Source: Premier League). Given that Man City dominated the game and possession, they saw 57% of the ball (Source: BBC), he should have made more than one tackle. The 29-year-old also lost six of his eight duels, and that simply isn’t good enough. While Man City and their players, such as Mahrez, are formidable, Cresswell simply has to do better when given the chance to feature.
