David Moyes made an honest admission about one of his West Ham United players, after our win over Burnley yesterday.
West Ham manager David Moyes guided his side to a 2-1 win at Turf Moor, but it was a really tough watch on the whole.
The Hammers weren’t really at the races at all until the final 10 minutes of the game. Divin Mubama got us back in the game with the equaliser, one that eventually went down as an own goal, and the young striker sent a clear message to Moyes with his ensuing celebration.
The West Ham players just took forever to get going, and one of those was Edson Alvarez. In fairness to the Mexican, he has been away on international duty on the other side of the Atlantic over the past couple of weeks.
The thing is, Moyes can’t afford to rest the 26-year-old because he doesn’t have another natural defensive midfielder at his disposal and he is the glue that holds this team together, certainly inside our own half.
It was clear to see that the Mexico international wasn’t in his best condition physically yesterday though…
David Moyes admits concern about one West Ham player after Burnley win
The Scot addressed the media yesterday after our hard-fought 2-1 win against the Clarets.
And Moyes highlighted just how tired Alvarez was going into the game, as quoted by WHUFC.com:
“The biggest worry for me today was Eddy Álvarez, as he only got back to Heathrow at five o’clock on Thursday afternoon. He had extra-time in his game for Mexico and he also had the jet lag and anybody who has been to the American side of the Atlantic will tell you how bad the jet lag is. On another day we might have said we wouldn’t play Eddy because he was out of steam on Friday, and I said to him I was always going to take him off, but when he got booked it made the decision easy because I needed to try and protect him a little bit. The boys who go away, it’s really difficult for them to go away and be really at it in the next game.”
It’s a big concern for me that we don’t have someone to come in and replace Alvarez when he’s not playing.
West Ham boss David Moyes has to address that in January or next summer at the very least, by signing another DM to provide competition and cover for the Mexican.
Alvarez is a great player, but we’re a completely different side when he’s not in the team.
And it’s quite obvious that Moyes needs to sort that particular weakness out as soon as possible if we’re to make genuine progress as a club.
