Ben Johnson has truly grown up this season and is rapidly putting himself in a position to genuinely challenge Vladi Coufal for the regular right back role when the Czech returns from a groin problem.
He was very close to – if not – the Hammers man of the match against a top Sevilla side last night with a performance right out of the top drawer.
And he is the first to admit that he would not have expected to have been in the position he was last night at the beginning of the season.
He is now approaching 50 appearances for the first team and has clearly enjoyed being part of the Hammers European challenge, having featured in the home victories over Rapid Vienna and Genk in the group stages, before starting at Seville last night.
It has certainly put a certain Jeremy Ngakia’s departure in perspective as the young utility player we see in Ben has made his mark
And speaking to Newham News he said: “When the season began, I certainly didn’t expect to be involved in the Europa League so this has all been a great experience for me and I hope that I’ll be playing next Thursday,” he added.
“Our  travelling fans did a great job supporting us tonight,” acknowledged the defender, eagerly anticipating the return in front of London Stadium’s 60,000 crowd.
“And now they can really spur us on in the second leg back in our own stadium, too. As players we always want to put things right
“Although we created some good clear-cut opportunities we didn’t take them and now we all want to rectify that next week.
“We’ve reached the last 16 and are facing the six-time winners and, as we saw, they are very capable of creating chances of their own.”
