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20,000 air miles can’t stop The General

Fabián Balbuena’s air miles during his international break could have been an issue – that they weren’t and he produced another fine defensive display at Bramall lane speaks volumes for the Paraguayan’s commitment and fitness.

A total of almost 20,000 miles between his homeland and Argentina plus jet lag on his return might have put his place under threat.

Indeed David Moyes made a point of mentioning it and discussing a possible Issa Diop call-up. That it didn’t happen is a big sign of the faith the manager is placing in the central defender right now.

What’s perhaps not widely understood, or known even, is that he had just a couple of training sessions ahead of the 1-0 victory – our first ever at Bramall Lane – ahead of a game in which he once again made it clear that it was going to take one heck of a lot for him to lose his place.

Commenting on a tough seven days he said: “It was harder than a normal week, but we have to used to this because it was an international break and me, as a South American player, I have to do a difficult trip.

But when we’re back here we have to change the chip and we need to be focused for the game, so we did a good job on Sunday and I think we deserved the result,” he told West Ham TV.

Every game is tough. We know that already, but I came from ten days and two really hard games in qualifying for the World Cup in South America but, as I say, when I arrived in London I changed my focus totally to be ready for the game.

The days we trained we did good work to prepare well for the game and we did all the things we worked on during those days to do a good job on Sunday.”

We know every threat is different, but we had seen in a video on Saturday how they played. We knew they had two good strikers and they like to fight and to head every cross that they put in but, as I say, we worked in the days before to try to stop these things and I think we did a good job and I think we deserved the three points in the end.”

 

I think Seb and Jarrod and Pablo and all the lads did a good job but especially Seb as we know, as a striker, he needs the goals to give him confidence and on Sunday he had a huge opportunity to score and of course he helped us to get the three points.”

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

2 comments on “20,000 air miles can’t stop The General

  1. An underrated player who quietly gets on with the job. After sitting on the bench for a year and make a remarkable contribution alongside Oggy is worthy of our appreciation. Good luck. Keep going. COYI

  2. The most successful purchase of the Pelegrini era? Probably.

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