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West Ham Monday Motivation: Beware the left foot of Andriy Yarmolenko

By Adam Smith

LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 29: Andriy Yarmolenko of West Ham United (l) celebrates scoring the second West Ham United goal during the Premier League match between West Ham United and Manchester United at London Stadium on September 29, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 29: Andriy Yarmolenko of West Ham United (l) celebrates scoring the second West Ham United goal during the Premier League match between West Ham United and Manchester United at London Stadium on September 29, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images) /
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It’s becoming a thing, isn’t it? In this West Ham renaissance, the emergence of Andriy Yarmolenko as a potential goal scoring machine is coming to the forefront of the West Ham attack. If Everton (almost Chelsea) and Manchester United could offer some advice it would be to NOT underestimate the left foot of Andriy Yarmolenko.

Three matches and three goals for Yarmolenko in a West Ham kit. It appears the Ukrainian giant has awoken from his early-season slumber and wants in on the goals. Manuel Pellegrini defended his shy usage of Yarmolenko early in the season behind a lingering injury that kept him out of the last few matches of the preseason and he also used the excuse of wanting to wade the player into Premier League football.

With goals not really coming early in the season for the Hammers, Yarmolenko getting a start and taking it immediately was a massive sigh of relief for West Ham fans. The coming out party was a daunting task for the Irons who traveled to Goodison Park to play Everton away, a fixture that has never been kind. But, as I keep saying, this is not the same old West Ham team.

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Yarmolenko took all of eleven minutes to make an impact at Everton. After a lovely ball played over the top found Arnautovic streaming away from his marker, he squared the ball over to Yarmolenko to net his first West Ham and Premier League goal. It wasn’t a challenging goal technically, but Yarmolenko lost his defender by a mile and finished well.

His second goal that came in the 31st minute was a bit more of a show-stopper. Irons fans had gorged themselves on Youtube clips of him scoring top of the box left footed strikes once he was announced a West Ham player, and now they got one to enjoy themselves. The shot was near perfect and the stutter step to make space is now his signature move as far as I’m concerned.

His efforts against Chelsea weren’t justly rewarded after he unluckily missed a wide-open header late in the match, but he still did take home the man of the match award for West Ham. He did finally get luck on his side as he shot a ball that deflected in past David de Gea and Manchester United. It ended up being an own-goal, but it was created by the stutter-stepping left boot of Yarmolenko.

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It’s clear that Arnautovic and Yarmolenko are good pals on and off the pitch, which is important when it comes to communication and sharing the ball. With Yarmolenko off to a smashing start and Felipe Anderson jumping in on the action now too the Hammers have a stellar and scary front three to contend with.

West Ham are starting to look the sum of their parts performance wise and as far as Yarmolenko is concerned all teams can do is beware his booming left boot.