From recent squad selections, Julen Lopetegui seems to have made his mind up about the personnel he wants to see on the pitch in West Ham’s back line.
The last couple of starts in the Premier League have seen Todibo and Kilman operate well in a defensive pairing: Emerson on the left and Wan-Bissaka on the right. Indeed, even when Emerson was substituted at Brentford and Wan Bissaka converted to a left back, the coach decided to use Mavropanos as a makeshift right back – and actually he performed pretty well.
Which won’t have been good news for right back Vladimir Coufal who was overlooked that day in favour of Mavropanos, a centre-back, playing in ‘Vlad’s spot.
Coufal – planning to fight for his place
It would seem that Coufal has been a man on a mission in this International break to send a message to his club coach that he’s not taking that lying down and will be working his socks off to get a place back in the squad if not the starting XI.
As reported by Czech site iSport.cz, his performance against Albania in Czechia’s 2-0 win, was impressive:”Just like in the old days in Slavia [Prague], he and [Jan] Bořil closed the sides of the pitch, the four-point formation suits him. “He [took] set-pieces, he cared about combinations. He sent the ball to the head of Chorý [for] the insurance goal.”
Sounds like Vladimir was rolling back the years and determined to impress those critics who’d been dismissive of his recent international form. I’m sure he is hoping that Lopetegui will sit up and take notice of the 7/10 rating he was given too. It can only bode well for The Hammers to have more players in form and competing for places on the bench and ready to step back into the side if injury or illness threatens.
Honest as a days long but AWB would take a lot of displacing.