Leroy: Irons midfield competition will be red hot
We have had a lot of players who will do the jobs asked of them but in Payet we have a 7/10 performer who is going to bring so much to the table. He won’t do it every week – no player does but when he does watch out. We’ll be out of our seats.
I was reading about some of the incidents he has been involved in down the years like having a punch-up with his captain during a game. I like a character – it’s good. Will he become our new Paolo Di Canio?
I think the midfield players who have become automatic choices over the last few years under Sam Allardyce are going to be really challenged this season.
The word I’m hearing is that Slaven Bilic wants to bring in another attacking midfielder which means that we will have whoever that turns out to be, Chiek Kouyate, Mark Noble, Payet, Downing, Morgan Amalfitano, Stewart Downing, hopefully Diego Poyet and possibly Alex Song all vying for places.
Too many players grabbed a shirt regardless of their form under Sam but that’s gonna change in a big way and hopefully nobody will be sulking because we are now a club on the up as far as I can see and rotation is the way it has to be.
We don’t yet know how the new boss is going to set up but I believe he will be play a much more fluid game than Sam Allardyce and I think a few players will need to get used to being rotated. These are exciting times. We are going to another level.
It will take a bit of time but every big club has two good players for each position. That will certainly be the case in the middle of the park. Hopefully other areas are going to be strengthened.
However, things bed down with the squad I’ll guarantee this -under Slaven Bilic we will be watching a much more exciting and fluid brand off football.
His style of play as Croata manager was fantastic to watch – I’m getting ready for a Hammers revolution.