Spare a thought for poor old Angelo Ogbonna. Oggy deserved far better than what he got at Crystal Palace during a 5-2 thumping at Selhurst Park.
Quite possibly, that will be the last time we see the Italian defender in a West Ham shirt following what has been an excellent career in East London.
I have a massive amount of sympathy for a player who was never going to cope well with such a fast and skilful frontline, and so it proved. Ogbonna will be 36 next month, and it was unfair to pair him with the equally pedestrian Kurt Zouma against the likes of Eze, Mateta, and Olise.
Moyes removed Oggy at halftime and replaced him with two full-backs as part of a tactical switch that stemmed the flow of Palace goals. However, West Ham were lucky that Palace took their foot off the accelerator and substituted their best players, or I suspect the mauling would have continued.
Oggy deserved better
The fact it took Moyes until halftime to address the situation was unsurprising, given that he did the same during the thrashing against Arsenal. The manager will argue that he had no choice but to play Ogbonna, but his deployment of Ben Johnson in defence would suggest otherwise.
The team looked painfully old, and clearly, Ogbonna was part of that. I just feel a little sorry for him. Oggy has been an excellent servant to the club and probably deserved a better farewell, particularly given the manager’s decision to lay the blame for the defeat on the defenders rather than accepting any criticism himself.
Yes, nothing is ever David Moyes’ fault, is it! He has some younger players but he doesn’t seem to like them very much. Dad’s Army is a more appropriate name than Moyes’ Boys.
Dithering Dave also seems to have a lot of Yes Men as his assistant coaches. Kevin Nolan always seems either uninterested or stunned into silence when things go wrong (which is often). Billy McKinlay doesn’t seem much better. I guess they are too worried for their jobs to actually suggest anything contrary to Moyesball mantra.