If you asked West Ham United fans to pick the word which best epitomises Pablo Fornals, a bonafide cult hero at the Premier League outfit, one answer you would hear again and again is ‘determination’.
A footballer who arrived in English football with a reputation for being a classically silky, typically Spanish attacking midfielder, and yet made himself a West Ham United fan favourite due to his spirit, his desire, and his, well, sheer, unfiltered ‘determination’.
Sometimes, it was a case of too much of the latter and not enough of the former. More crash than bang.
Back in 2020, shortly after West Ham paid £24 million to bring him to the London Stadium, David Moyes raved about Fornals ‘work-rate’ while also asking for a little bit more of the ‘Spanish flair’ he demonstrated back in La Liga with Malaga and Villarreal.
As Spanish football oracle Terry Gibson put it, on a recent edition of El Tel and Jon’s La Liga Weekly podcast, Fornals stunned the West Ham bosses immediately upon arriving in the English capital.
They expected neat footwork and clever vision, yes. But maybe not quite so much terrier-like tenacity.
If any one moment summed up the very best of Pablo Fornals, though, it was the goal he scored for current employers Real Betis in their 2-0 derby victory over bitter Andalusian rivals Sevilla over the weekend.
Dogged determination and Mediterranean magic, all rolled into one.
West Ham United hero Pablo Fornals adds to his Real Betis legacy in Seville derby
Fornals had not provided a goal nor an assist in any of Betis’ last three clashes with Sevilla. That would change just shy of the hour mark at a tense and testy Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan though, the 2023 Conference League champion finally bringing some class to a game lacking in quality.
Gibson’s glowing reenactment, meanwhile, is Fornals in a nutshell.
“With Fornals, it’s not just the skill involved in the goal. It is that determination to get from one end of the pitch to the other, to chase a lost cause, to win the ball back, and then it was him against three,” the former Manchester United, Tottenham and Wimbledon forward said on Monday’s El Tel and Jon’s La Liga Weekly podcast.
“More often, you see a player knowing he is under pressure take the shot on, and it’s a weak finish or he drags it wide. But he decided to show physical presence to hold off the challenges, skill to evade the last-ditch challenge from [former Chelsea captain Cesar] Azpilicueta, and then the poise to finish.”
What is your favourite Pablo Fornals memory at West Ham?
As Sevilla midfielder Etienne Mendy dawdled on the ball inside his own half, Fornals nicked in from the blindside, stole possession, and hared off towards the penalty area. He jinked away from Azpilicueta not once but twice, put another Sevilla defender on the floor, and then swept home in sub-zero style.
“It was a fantastic goal, out of nothing, and that changed the game because the first half was awful; a lack of quality,” adds Gibson, Betis building on Fornals’ opener with a second shortly afterwards.
“It was a fabulous goal from Fornals and, from thereon, Betis looked far better.”
Fornals back in the Spain squad as he dazzles under Manuel Pellegrini
In truth, he has never played better than this. Not even at the peak of his West Ham powers.
Pablo Fornals has been in ‘spectacular’ form throughout the campaign. So much so that Fornals was handed a return to the Spain fold after three years away. A World Cup spot is his, should he wish to grasp it.
If he is a cult hero at West Ham, then he is hurtling towards legendary status in Seville.
“Pablo is having a great season,” Betis’ former West Ham coach Manuel Pellegrini said after another moment of fancy-footed Fornals thrust lifted his side into fifth place. “It doesn’t matter if he plays further back, further forward, or on the wing…”
“He has become a different player to what I thought he was initially going to be. And that came from West Ham,” Gibson said earlier in the campaign, arguably the best of Fornals’ entire career.
“At Villarreal and Malaga, I thought; ‘Technically, really good. That’s his strength. A classic Spanish attacking midfield player’. Then he went to West Ham, and I spoke to a few people who worked at West Ham. They told me; ‘His work-rate is off the scale’.
“That is what took them by surprise. They knew about his other attributes but they didn’t know how hard he worked, what a good attitude he had. He’s just continued that now, to the extent that he’s now an orthodox central midfield player.”
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