West Ham manager David Moyes has made a big Angelo Ogbonna injury claim, highlighting the importance of the Italian to his team.
The 34-year-old has returned to action this season, having spent around nine months on the sidelines due to a serious ACL injury.
The experienced defender is still a very important player for West Ham, both on and off the pitch.
The Italian has been eased back into action slowly, and has played just 361 minutes of first-team football so far this season.
He has a big part to play this season though, and Moyes has highlighted just how highly he rates the centre-back…
West Ham boss David Moyes makes big Angelo Ogbonna injury claim
When Ogbonna suffered his ACL injury during our 3-2 win over Liverpool at the London Stadium last season, the Hammers sat in third place in the Premier League table.
After the two-week international break in November though, the West Ham players completely lost their momentum and our form as a team dropped off the face of a cliff.
Moyes told reporters yesterday how Ogbonna’s absence alongside his side’s struggles post-November was no coincidence, as quoted by WHUFC.com:
At the time when we lost Angelo [to injury] last season, we were in the top two or three in the league. Angelo was in great form playing alongside Kurt, and probably if we’re honest, we were maybe in our best form in that period. It was maybe once we lost Angelo that it started to dip a little bit in certain ways. He gave us left-sided balance at the time and it just didn’t feel quite as good after.
West Ham have played 36 Premier League games since Ogbonna went off injured during our 3-2 win over Liverpool in November last year and we have taken just 43 points.
That’s bordering on relegation form isn’t it!
It seems as though we’ve settled down as a team over the past couple of weeks though, with all eight new signings starting to settle down to life in the Premier League.
Our chances of success this season will be heavily dependent on not only the new signings flourishing but the old guard rediscovering their best form as well.
Ogbonna is vital to this team, with his leadership and organisational skills.
West Ham boss David Moyes made a big Angelo Ogbonna injury claim by suggesting that his absence was the key reason behind our slump during the second half of last season.
And we tend to agree with him.
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