West Ham midfielder Soungoutou Magassa produced the sort of performance that made Old Trafford sit up and take notice as the Hammers claimed a 1-1 draw with Manchester United.
Even before the young Frenchman struck the equaliser, he looked every inch the best midfielder on the pitch. The signs were there after his impressive display against Liverpool, where he was harshly booked for a perfectly timed tackle. In Manchester, his full repertoire was on show as he repeatedly won the ball cleanly and looked for progressive passes.
A Complete Midfield Performance
It was the polar opposite of what James Ward-Prowse had been offering at the start of the season, but it was Magassa’s all-round game that stood out. Shortly before guiding home from Andy Irving’s corner, he had started and finished a move that saw him burst into the box and fire just wide.
To put it bluntly, Magassa was everywhere. And on a night when Jean-Clair Todibo and Aaron Wan-Bissaka were exceptional, being named man of the match meant something.
Let’s be honest: West Ham are still in deep trouble. But with Magassa, Freddie Potts and Mateus Fernandes forming a ridiculously youthful and energetic midfield, Nuno Espírito Santo can now focus his January transfer attention on attack rather than the centre of the pitch.
With Mohamadou Kanté also introduced as a second-half substitute, you do wonder whether Tim Steidten and Kyle Macaulay were wearing a wry smile. Maybe—just maybe—they weren’t too bad after all.
I thought Steiden was good at what he did generally he got his targets and mostly they were good ones. Likewise Macauley I hadn’t noticed Fernandes at Southampton and Magassa was a total new player to me. The problem is Sullivan meddling and not recruiting the right managers and fundng the wrong ones. We still don’t seem to be professionally organised.
Steidten and Macauley were never the problem, even though these pages have thrown quite a bit of blame at the German. 4 managers in a short space of time is THE problem. When left to pick the players they believe could take us forward, the aforementioned have, by and large, done a good job
Picking up on remarks made by NES, great to see Dinos and Todibo doing well. They are quick over the ground and wholehearted in defence. Although MU attack not their strong point either.
For a lot of the game though, we seemed to have no real ideas up front in attack and the ball would go forwards and come all the way back to defence. Not a criticism, tough for Bowen and Wilson. Hope we get a quick all round forward who can press more, we might be able to keep teams back in their own half a bit – time will tell. I guess in the end makes sense goal came from a midfield player breaking forward. Both Magassa and Kante seem to do this along with Soucek the indomitable of course.
Steidten & Macaulay must be good. You are not hopeless because you make a couple of mistakes (Fullkrug), especially coming from Bundesliga, not being used to WHU recruitment mishandling and so on.
More importantly, they have demonstrated the way ahead and hopefully WHU takes that route with other people in charge (Max Hahn & ?) + academy input. Look how long it takes everyone to get on board and understand what is going on. That is concerning.
Even Guilherme and say Scarles (injured but a little bit out of his depth at times, I think), not all going perfectly, but potential is there. Perhaps Guilherme will take 2 seasons to develop until maybe a really good winger at 22/23 yearsof age. Most clubs would be chuffed at this, we just whine & whinge about money spent, when the club have thrown skip loads of cash down the swanny (keep those old expressions coming!). If no positive outcome, he’ll always be sellable anyhow.
In addition we’ve had a nightmare series of managers. Glad to see NES taking the youth on board, perhaps obliged, but either way he is giving it a wholehearted go. We need a bit of experience all good teams do, but that’s it. No more over the hill, quick fixes in recruitment please. Last remark is, that these players are attack minded and the manager must use this to his advantage, not restricted to counter-attacks only, but pressing forward and going for the jugular. That’s precisely what Magassa did; scared the living daylights out of MU.
Anyhow, even if we end up n the Championship the club must do all it can to keep these youngsters at the club – then we’ll bounce back, I don’t believe we’d stay stuck in the championship long, not with these lads on board (80s Crystal Palace).
I hope Nuno now shifts his thoughts for the January window to the Striker and Centre backs more than the midfield as these young men are growing with each game and no histrionics no diving no whinging just getting on with the game and playing as a TEAM not as individuals
So with Potts Fernandes Magassa in the side Earthy Kante on the bench we have the legs in midfield for the first time in a long time and a certain Brazilian should just be kept away from these young players because his kind of personality is not needed around the squad.
I was happy we didn’t drop our heads and kept going . The performance was good , Magassa was awesome but there were good performances from. Number of players . This is the effort we need to climb up the table . Well done lads ⚒
Np paqueta no problem , I didnt see one player falling over or causing dramatics , just young lads enjoying playing football , sell paqueta in January and get us a top class striker
So much better to watch how many times have we said play the kids