Huge respect to West Ham winger Crysencio Summerville, who overcame the disappointment of not making the starting line-up against Manchester United.
The £25 million signing had seemed a clear choice for the starting eleven after it was announced that Mohammed Kudus would be suspended for at least three games following his red card against Spurs.
Summerville has shown patience this season, playing as understudy to Kudus, who took longer than expected to find form. So, in the Ghanaian’s absence, it was reasonable to assume that the former Leeds winger would be rewarded with a stint on the left wing. Unfortunately it was not to be as Julen Lopetegui surprisingly selected Carlos Soler instead.
Nevertheless, Summerville handled Soler being chosen over him with grace and aimed to prove his manager wrong in the best way possible—on the pitch.
The winger not only scored a goal but also added much-needed direct running and, most importantly, pace to the Hammers’ attack. He immediately unsettled Manchester United’s defence, carrying a real threat.
While it remains uncertain whether Lopetegui will be convinced enough to start Summerville, he showed plenty of variety in his game to warrant consideration. Not only did he dribble and pass with attacking intent, but he also delivered a couple of excellent crosses and created enough confusion to draw fouls from Erik ten Hag’s defenders.
Though I still feel West Ham aren’t playing cohesively as a team yet, there are individual performances I genuinely enjoy watching, and Summerville is certainly one of them.
Anyone would think Summerville left kudus right Bowen up top. That would be my preferred option for the three players. On the other hand, the one game where lopetegui played that way, can’t remember which game it was, but it didn’t work if I remember rightly. I think we are going to have to get used to the fact Lopetegui doesn’t play the same team each game against every opposition but instead picks his team depending on who the opposition are. So we have to trust he’s got it right. Against Man U he didn’t get it right but at least he changed things up at half time.
“Overcome his disappointment”, is that a direct quote or more made up garbage? He is a professional footballer, overcoming disappointment isn’t a thing. Havig the hump about being on the bench may be; but pretending that getting on the pitch is “overcoming” some great emotional hudle is garbage.
Antonio should be used as a super sub at 60 minute point.
He is obviously not the player he was but his strength and fresh legs would be a telling factor, with 30 mins to go.
Totally agree! Surely Summerville on LW, Bowen up top and Kudus RW is the best way forward until we sign a striker with pace.
Just worried JL is trying to not play this way as it was Moyes who deployed Bowen as a striker.
Summerville “proving the manager wrong” is what we all knew already that JL again got our starting 11 very wrong.
I’ve worked in some toxic environments and when there is no faith in the leadership it galvanises the team.
We should’ve been 4-0 down in the first 12 minutes. We were extremely lucky to win with the dodgy penalty and Man Utd missing so many chances.
Paqueta must know his time is up and Summerville is now the man to start on the LW. Let’s hope JL has finally seen what was staring him in the face.