One West Ham player put in a really good performance against Aston Villa in the Premier League, despite our 2-1 defeat.
West Ham weren’t great yesterday in all fairness, and Aston Villa probably deserved all three points upon reflection.
The Hammers are clearly a work in progress. Julen Lopetegui has only been in charge for six weeks, so patience from the fans will be needed.
However, it was hugely concerning to watch how easily Aston Villa played through the middle of us, especially in transition.
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Big improvements are clearly needed from almost every single player, and Lopetegui of course, if we are to achieve any kind of success this season.
The Hammers head coach will help himself massively by starting more of his new signings next weekend.
It was one of the new arrivals who really impressed yesterday, and his stats back that up.
Outstanding West Ham ace stood out vs Aston Villa
There weren’t too many strong performances from the Hammers yesterday, but there were certainly a couple of encouraging displays.
Mohammed Kudus had the home fans off their seats on numerous occasions, but someone else deserves big credit as well.
Max Kilman joined West Ham from Wolves for £40 million in the summer, and I think he did a really good job against Villa yesterday.
The 27-year-old looked by far our most accomplished defender, and I think he’ll go from strength to strength under Lopetegui this season.
The West Ham boss is clearly a big fan of the central defender, and apparently considered making him the new club captain before settling on Jarrod Bowen in the end.
Hi statistics from yesterday’s match were mightily impressive.
Kilman had 82 touches, made 5 progressive passes, 5 ball recoveries, completed 58 passes, 55 ball carries, made 7 clearances, 2 interceptions, 2 blocks and 2 tackles (Who Scored).
I love how he stepped out with the ball at times, and he made a sensational goal-line intervention late on in the game that kept the score at 1-2.
One slight criticism of the former Wolves man is that he should be more commanding aerially and aggressive at times, given his size and stature.
Max Kilman is a proper centre-back – the kind that we’ve lacked at the London Stadium for quite some time now.
The defender was one of the better players on display for West Ham against Aston Villa yesterday, and he was unlucky to end up on the losing team.
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