Former Scotland international Alan Hutton has claimed that West Ham United midfielder Robert Snodgrass would have been ‘fuming’ at the Hammers’ 4-0 defeat to Oxford United on Wednesday.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side were humiliated as they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup at the Kassam Stadium. Hutton, who played with his fellow Scot at Aston Villa, feels Snodgrass has nothing to be ashamed of, though.
“That is one guy I know who would have been raging,” he told Football Insider. “I guarantee you that he wasn’t happy. Snoddy’s the type of guy that if he played bad last night, I bet he ran about and he tackled and he worked hard. He’d give everything, always.
“Sometimes you have an off night which is fine, but the least you expect off a player is 100 per cent. I’m sure he would have been one of the main voices in the changing room at half time and full time.”
OPINION
This is just really uninformed punditry from Hutton. ‘I guarantee you that he wasn’t happy’ – wow, what breathtaking insight from the former Villa man. A player on the wrong side of a 4-0 defeat isn’t happy about the result, amazing stuff. You can just tell that he didn’t watch the game. Him going on about Snodgrass working hard despite having an off night just completely skirts around the fact that his countryman was one of the worst players on the pitch at the Kassam Stadium. As per WhoScored.com, Snodgrass completed 28 passes during the game, the fourth fewest of any West Ham starter. That’s not the worst of it. His pass success rate of just 60.7% was the lowest of any Hammer. In fact, the next lowest was Sebastien Haller’s tally of 76.9% – and he was a substitute. That’s just staggeringly bad use of the football. The Scot made four crosses on Wednesday… none of them found their man. He played one long ball forward… it failed to find its man. He had one shot on goal… it was off target. Defensively, he made two tackles and a clearance, so it’s not like he was Terry Butcher at the back either. Overall, Hutton simply completely misses the point here.
