There’ll be some relief amongst the West Ham medical staff at Rush Green tonight knowing that Manor Solomon was left out of Israel’s match altogether after the winger could not train owing to the pain of an ongoing injury.
However there will be concern that this same issue which dogged Solomon through September might yet prevent him playing his full part in the busy run up to Christmas – with its demanding schedule of nine games in a little over a month.
Solomon came back from the last international break in September looking washed out, and in truth, his performances since have been a disappointment after his early season impact and man-of-the-match award.
Solomon – early season form has fallen away as his back injury has made itself known
There’s been a sneaking suspicion that Solomon has been playing with an injury -and this would seem to be confirmed by his being left out of his national side. In truth he probably should not even have travelled. According to Yahoo Sports:
“The winger missed out on the Israel squad completely for the 0-0 draw with Kosovo on Saturday.
Solomon had been suffering from back issues, and only partially trained on Wednesday.
He participated in the first session, before missing the second one and then tried to train on Friday.
However, Israeli boss Ran Ben-Shimon confirmed that he was in too much pain, and ultimately left him out of the contest.”
From a purely selfish club vs country perspective, West Ham could really do with the winger sitting out Israel’s next fixture against Austria on Tuesday evening.
Whilst Edvin Austbø has pulled ahead of Solomon in the pecking order, I shouldn’t wonder if Solomon’s back problems have been affecting him ever since he arrived at London Stadium and as the hours on the pitch have racked up, his high-energy output has nose dived.