Make no mistake, Samir Nasri is a proper player and it’s understandable that many of us failed to understand the wave of criticism when it became apparent the boss wanted him.
Sadly I would maintain that Jack Wilshere was a mistake – a decision made in haste and one of which we will repent at leisure Nasri is a different kettle of fish altogether. He’s class!
Remembering he hasn’t played for over a year what we saw this afternoon was of the highest order POTENTIALLY because there is clearly so much more to come.
With him providing the creative guile and Declan doing the search and destroy role we look very well set up indeed.
Today we saw a player playing seriously neat and tidy stuff in the middle of the park with some incisive passing and whilst he was around we were bang on the front foot.
It was no surprise when he left the action that the opposition looked a whole lot more dangerous because Nasri is a player who makes a big difference.
Today as said was all about neat and tidy but this guy really does do ‘flash’ and personally I can’t wait to see more of him – a great signing by the boss.
And afterwards Nasri declared: “I’m happy to get my first minutes in the West Ham shirt, but most important was the team performance and winning 2-0, keeping a clean sheet. That was the goal today and that’s what we did.
“It was important to not let Birmingham get into the game with confidence, so we pushed from the start and scoring the goal that early made everyone more comfortable on the ball and able to play our football.
“The coach rotated the squad and had young players in the team, so it was important to score an early goal for everyone to be a little more free on the ball.
“It was a tricky game, because they didn’t want to do anything with the ball, but when they had it they played that long ball and tried to catch us on the break.
“I felt good, honestly I thought I would struggle a little more with the rhythm as my last game was 13 months ago.
“I’m just relieved that everything is now behind me and happy about those first 58 minutes. It was good and I’m just looking forward to the next game.”
I imagine Nasri is the player Pellegrini was hoping Wilshire would be. Now i imagine Wilshire is going to find himself back up to Nasri. Although Wilshire and Nasri In front of Declan Rice would be a fantastic midfield trio. But then you’ve still got Noble and Lanzini. If everyone is fit the manager has got the kind of problem picking the team he can only dream about.
Nice problem to have for Pelle.I have always rated Nasri above Wilshere anyhow going right back to their Arsenal days.Nasri was always the more complete player and weighed in with a good goal scoring ratio too for a midfielder.
Nasri and Wilshere are different types of players with a different range of passing I think they will probably work well together when Wilshere is fit 🙂 Certainly Nasri with his short accurate passing, lots of give and goes was a breath of fresh air in our midfield.