Aaron Wan-Bissaka was absolutely brilliant for West Ham United, during his debut for the club against Crystal Palace.
West Ham signed Aaron Wan-Bissaka from Manchester United earlier this summer for around £15 million – a fee so cheap that Jamie Redknapp actually could not believe it.
Despite concerns that the transfer wouldn’t go through, Fabrizio Romano always insisted that Aaron Wan-Bissaka would be a Hammers player in the end.
The 26-year-old right-back became the eighth summer signing made by Julen Lopetegui, and the West Ham head coach resisted temptation to throw him in from the start against Aston Villa last weekend.
And then it was a huge shock when the former Crystal Palace and Man United man was omitted from the starting lineup for the clash with the Eagles.
The West Ham fans were utterly baffled that the new-boy wasn’t named ahead of Vladimir Coufal in the starting XI.
However, he was brought into the fray with around a third of the match still to play, and he completely changed the game for us.
Why Man United sold him for £15 million and replaced him with the inferior Noussair Mazraoui is anyone’s guess.
Who cares though! Their loss is clearly very much our gain.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka busts myth for West Ham
The early signs are that the Hammers may well have made the best signing of the summer transfer window.
In all fairness, Lopetegui has made a whole host of top tier new additions to his Hammers squad this summer.
That said, Wan-Bissaka could well end up being the standout signing if he continues to play like he did for the final half an hour of yesterday’s win over Palace.
When West Ham signed him, we were all warned about his lack of end product inside the final third – a bizarre criticism in my opinion, considering the fact that he’s a right-back!
However, I totally get the need for attacking full-backs in the modern game, so the criticisms aimed at the 26-year-old certainly made some of the Hammers fans wary about the player we were signing.
Those concerns have already proven to be completely unfounded though.
I think it was probably one pundit who started the narrative than Wan-Bissaka isn’t very good going forward, perhaps after the 26-year-old has a poor game offensively.
That has then been copied by numerous different commentators and pundits throughout the years and who knows, maybe Wan-Bissaka even started believing it himself.
Paul Merson is one example of a pundit who has slammed the South London-born defender for his poor quality inside the final third (Manchester Evening News).
Myth-buster Wan-Bissaka
The truth of the matter is that the narrative that Wan-Bissaka is not good enough going forward is a complete and utter fallacy.
And the Hammers star well and truly busted that myth during our 2-0 win over his former club Crystal Palace.
He played a key role in our opening goal against the Eagles when he burst down the right-hand flank with explosive pace, before leaving numerous Palace players in his wake.
He then deftly laid the ball inside to Jarrod Bowen with a sensational touch. The 27-year-old forward then ran inside the Palace penalty area and created the panic that eventually led to Tomas Soucek’s goal.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka is head and shoulders above West Ham right-back Vladimir Coufal, and he will completely transform us as a team.
The former Manchester United man is clearly a better defender than the Czech Republic international, but I think he’ll prove a lot of people wrong by being superior than him going forward as well.
The spider – Aaron Wan-Bissaka – the buster of myths. Glorious to see.
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