West Ham defender gets that oh-so familiar sinking feeling on international duty

The games rack up and the pitch time continues to mount up on several West Ham players on duty for their countries ahead of a resumption of the challenging Championship programme a week today.

Manor Solomon played through another gruelling 90 minutes in his countries’ goalless draw against Kosovo and has the controversial second leg of their Ireland double header to come on Sunday.

Mads Hermansen and Dinos Mavropanos both played full games in their respective national teams’ fixtures – Denmark went down 4-2 to Portugal whilst Mavropanos’ Greece suffered what is, for West Ham’s defender, that oh so familiar sinking feeling from last season as his side failed to hold on to a two-goal lead and ultimately escaped with a 2 – 2 draw at home to Crysencio Summerville’s  Netherlands.

As Claret and Hugh covered yesterday, Mavropanos‘ games are racking up with still one more fixture ahead on Sunday evening against Germany meaning he’ll have completed four full games since the ‘break’ began. More than some players completed in their entire World Cup finals campaign in the summer: And none then went straight into an eighteen game Championship marathon leading up to the end of the year.

It seems more than likely Mavropanos – and Solomon – who will have completed three games plus – will return completely cream crackered just as the rest of their team mates are raring to go. In Solomon’s case West Ham do at least have an understudy – Edvin Austbø – who can step in, but the Hammers will struggle to do without the Greek who has become pretty much indispensible this season, ever since West Ham failed to sign a Disasi replacement.