da roleta： West Brom reverted back to type on Tuesday evening as they were beaten 2-1 by West Ham at the London Stadium.
da dobrowin： The hosts took the lead right on half-time as Vladimir Coufal’s cross was turned in by Jarrod Bowen inside the penalty area before a touch of class from Matheus Pereira levelled things up just six minutes after the restart.
For all of the Baggies’ efforts, it just wasn’t enough after Michail Antonio fired home the winner 15 minutes later.
Dara O’Shea had blocked a shot off the line just moments before, but aside from that, he had a disappointing game down the right flank.
Hammers duo Aaron Cresswell and Said Benrahma caused the 21-year-old problems all night. They combined for a total of four crosses, four key passes and two successful dribbles, per SofaScore.
So it’s no wonder that the Evening Standard’s Jack Rosser gave them both glowing praise.
For the left-back, he rated him an 8/10 and said: “A real threat from crosses all evening, [a] good ball to find Yarmolenko in the build-up to Antonio’s goal,” whilst the Irons reporter claimed it was the Brentford loanee’s “best showing in a West Ham shirt.”
Indeed, the four-time Ireland international, who is naturally a centre-back, was tasked with stopping the West Ham duo but he endured a nightmare evening.
O’Shea was hugely wasteful with the ball, losing possession a team-high 28 times, which was a whopping 11 times more than any other player, meaning he was crucial in the Irons regaining control of the game. He also enjoyed more touches of the ball (78) but one in 2.8 of touches resulted in him merely giving the ball back to the home side.
On top of that, the Hawthorns graduate only completed 48% of his 42 passing attempts, only emphasising just how careless he was at right-back.
It’s also made worse by the fact that he has averaged a passing accuracy of 65.9% throughout the whole season and that’s an already shocking number – the third-worst of any Albion starter.
Sam Allardyce clearly trusts him to fulfil that role over Darnell Furlong as he also started the Black Country derby there, so the 66-year-old has every right to feel betrayed by that performance.
Albion have leaked six goals in the three appearances that O’Shea has been deployed at right-back this season.
That is an alarming number and it is something that Big Sam must look at going into next week’s encounter with Manchester City.
AND in other news, Allardyce can find his next Nzonzi in THIS West Brom target…