Fitness issues continue to dog West Ham’s loaned-out stars who deemed themselves ‘too posh for the championship’ and pushed for a summer move once relegation was confirmed.
Yesterday’s Aaron Wan-Bissaka news confirmed that the defender – on loan at Aston Villa with a secret option to purchase deal depending on the player completing an unknown number of games – was worrying for West Ham HQ with Wan-Bissaka stricken with a hamstring injury likely to relegate him from Unai Emery’s starting line up.
From France come reports that Jean-Clair Todibo is faring no better, struggling to match even the basic fitness requirements demanded of his loan side RC Lens.
Todibo: The only one smiling about his input at loan side Lens just now.
Todibo, on a dry loan with no option or obligation to purchase, has had zero game time since refusing to play for Nuno after he was hooked in the first half of West Ham’s Premier League encounter with Newcastle United last season. And the French media have observed a shocking lack of fitness from the defender, according to madeinfoot:
“Todibo… once again,.. struggled to finish the game and had to give up his place at the hour mark. The state of his fitness is not reassuring”
Compare with West Ham’s loaning of Chelsea’s ‘bomb squad’ member Axel Disasi last winter: Disasi went straight into the Hammers line up, despite not completing a game for almost a year, and became an ever-present in the Irons’ line up.
Todibo, it seems, can’t manage an hour of football after zero exertions in six months. No wonder his career is on the slide.
And the worst part of the whole saga is that he’s headed back to West Ham at the end of the season with a hugely lucrative contract in east London until 2029. D’oh.
Todibo – is he bovvered?
He’s only there as cover. Emery doesn’t want to sign him permanently, hence the terms of the loan deal. We’ll be stuck with him and Todibo at the end of the season.
The difference between Lens, 4 points off top place in Ligue 1, and West Ham’s plight back in February.
This was Tobido’s first match having been sub once and unused sub twice since moving to Lens.
Possibly Lens have an established defence and Tobido is easing his way into the side, that is now going to be playing twice a week with Champions League matches
Yes, it’s disappointing that Tobido hasn’t hit the ground running as Disasi did, but it’s definitely a different situation, and far too early to say the dry loan hasnt worked yet
As you keep saying about West Ham’s league position, this one should be reviewed in the New Year
AWB was being used as an auxiliary left back by Villa. Matt Cash has their right back position sewn up