The solutions to West Ham’s defensive injury crisis

Option 4 – Kral time?

Alex Kral is a midfielder but began his career at centre-back and has played there numerous times in his career. He has only featured once in the league and is clearly either not trusted or rated by Moyes. Throwing him in a slightly unnatural position in these massive matches would be a risk but who knows he could become a resurgent hero and step up when needed.

There is believed to be a clause in his loan deal that leads to West Ham buying him permanently if he makes a certain amount of appearances. The number is not known but it could be one of the reasons Moyes has not really used the Czech international.

Conclusion

The answer is still we don’t know what Moyes will choose to do. I’d predict that the back three against Frankfurt and Chelsea will be used. That will definitely be cult hero Dawson and Creswell but the third member could be Johnson or Alese.

A four should be used against Norwich coming up and it would be beneficial to see Alese start at least that game even if he isn’t ready for the bigger ones. However, he has to be ready, now is his chance, youngsters wait for an opportunity and his time could be now – during the biggest period for West Ham in a number of years.

Let’s hope a good solution can be found and the Hammers are not negatively impacted too much.