West Ham fans would have gone into yesterday’s game with some worries over the goalkeeping position following Lukasz Fabianski’s injury.
It has since transpired that the keeper will face surgery on his torn muscle as revealed here exclusively last night and is likely to be out for up to two months.
So a decent performance from the No 2 yesterday was important from his own point of view, that of the fans and the club itself.
There have been many doubters but at the end of the game he had probably come out with a rating around the six mark.
He distinguished himself early on by leaving his line early to smother the ball and chances of an onrushing Palace striker but was all at sea for one Zaha cross, seemingly unsure whether to stay or come off his line.
By and large his distribution was good and found his Hammers outfield players on several occasions rather than seeing the long ball forward come back from the opposition defence.
So know serious complaints although if I were to make one judgement it would be that he leaves his line more often and commands the penalty area.
Typical Spanish keeper, very good at shot stopping but terrible at kicking (they don’t kick long as much as we do) and poor at claiming balls across the box (glued to his line preparing to make a shot stop rather than coming to claim it).
Hopefully those flaws aren’t exposed.