Green Street Hammers
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West Ham need to axe “Passenger Players”

By Adam Smith

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 31: Heung-Min Son of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates after scoring his team's first goal during the Carabao Cup Fourth Round match between West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur at London Stadium on October 31, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 31: Heung-Min Son of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates after scoring his team's first goal during the Carabao Cup Fourth Round match between West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur at London Stadium on October 31, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images) /
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LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 31: Lucas Perez of West Ham United argues with Adrian of West Ham United during the Carabao Cup Fourth Round match between West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur at London Stadium on October 31, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 31: Lucas Perez of West Ham United argues with Adrian of West Ham United during the Carabao Cup Fourth Round match between West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur at London Stadium on October 31, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images) /

A fan favorite and five year veteran of the claret and blue, Adrian has lost his skill, professionalism, decision making, and net and needs to be moved on from by Pellegrini and West Ham. His contract is up at West Ham come June 1st of 2019 (end of this season) but I genuinely believe that if West Ham want to take steps forward this season he needs to be sold off or given away in January.

In the Spurs match, he played extremely poorly even with none of the goals directly being his fault. On both goals from Son, Adrian was hung out to dry by Arthur Masuaku who was given fits by the Korean forward all night. The third and final goal was most notably on Ogbonna and Snodgrass for poor defensive marking off of a corner. Still, Adrian found ways to be ineffective.

He threw the ball to Spurs players twice while not under pressure, which further pressured a backline that was not functioning properly. He also continuously suicide passed the ball to Issa Diop with attackers on him. Diop couldn’t do anything other than lob the ball up the pitch or put it out to clear his lines, but it’s an unnecessary risk to take for a keeper, especially one with the armband on to out his defenders in situations like those.

Adrian’s leadership with that armband was extremely suspect. I know he’s young, but Rice should have held that armband as he was actually up the pitch and able to talk to the referee (who was a mess himself) on behalf of his teammates. Adrian couldn’t decide whether to come claim balls or let them drop, he couldn’t organize his team in the 18-yard box to defend corners, and he couldn’t organize a breakout from possession so why should he lead the team?

Next. West Ham fail to show up in embarrassing loss to Spurs in Cup match. dark

All three players are relics of managers and regimes previous to Pellegrini’s time at West Ham. Their new manager wiped the slate clean, which all three players could have used to their advantage, but all are bench options at best right now and need to be removed from the team in January.