Marko Arnautovic has had a big question mark thrown over him by top pundit Jamie Redknapp.
Son of Harry – who incidentally has been very quiet for an extended period proving that the age of miracles is not over – made particular reference to the Hammer of last year in his weekly Daily Mail column when analysing the team’s performance over a wretched four games.
Arnautovic has been involved in all four games and has so far responded with a couple of goals but Redknapp clearly feels something is wrong with the player’s game at the moment,
He appears to have accused the player of perhaps being selfish in a forthright appraisal of his contribution to the Hammers cause so far.
He said: “Marko Arnautovic is the star man but sometimes when I watch him I wonder whether he is playing for himself and not the team
“How can Pellegrini motivate him to become the snarling forward who under David Moyes struck fear into defenders?”
On Saturdays game he had nobody to play with, so he had to play for himself. Nobody wanted to join him in the area at the vital moments. Did Pellegrini plan it that way for some reason?
Last season he had Lanzini as a willing partener, but this season his position should go to Anderson, but he is not always willing to be there for some reason. Anderson should be told to play that position ( no.10 ) all the time, so Arnie has someone to bounce the ball off.
Well there is an element of truth in what was said in that sometimes he does go for the impossible, when a simple pass to others might be better, ( but nowhere near as one sighted as Antonio who never seems to look up) but I do not think making him captain has helped, as it is heaping too much pressure on him to lead by example.
I have never been a believer in making either a forward or keeper captain and think the role more suited to midfield or defence.
I think Arnie is trying too hard to do everything when he needs to be the agressor of last season
Agree players like Arnie are better as vice captains they don’t have the natural leadership of proper captains like a Nolan or an Alvin Martin for example. Just let him be free of major responsibility I think more though this season we are playing with the ball higher up the pitch and last season most of his best work came on the counter attack with mid range passes over the top he could run onto, against the better teams with the pace we have there is a case for trying to suck teams onto us and counter using the pace of Anderson, Arnie, Fredericks and Yarmolenko to open them up, Bournemouth have found it effective (against us and others using Calumn Wiilson) Watford do it, Everton have used Richarlison in that role and Wolves used Traore to hurt us and if that donkey can make an ass of us we should with our pedigree forwards be able to do the same back to other teams, probably why we did well against Arsenal not that I saw much of the game.