West Ham’s disaster waiting to happen now has to start vs Arsenal after major injury blow

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West Ham United travel to north London to take on Arsenal in the Premier League on Saturday.

It will be a tough enough game as it is for West Ham, as Arsenal have the chance to close the gap on Premier League leaders Liverpool to just five points.

However, Graham Potter‘s task of getting a result at The Emirates will now almost be an impossible one.

That said, it’s not all doom and gloom, after Craig Pawson was announced at the referee for the Arsenal vs West Ham clash.

Pawson has a checkered past with the Gunners, and has helped out the Hammers on numerous occasions in the past.

But I digress…

For Potter, it will be all about getting his team selection spot on from the first whistle.

West Ham are without some key players, including Lucas Paqueta after he suffered an ankle injury in training.

However, the Brazilian isn’t the only one who’ll be on the sidelines for a while…

Konstantinos Mavropanos must to start for West Ham vs Arsenal

Hammers defender Konstantinos Mavropanos has been one of our worst players this season, and definitely our worst defender.

He was poor once again on Saturday against Brentford, and the way that the mood inside the London Stadium was killed when Mavropanos was named in the starting XI is a sign of just how poor he is.

The calamitous Greek centre-back has cost us on numerous occasions with his horrendous concentration levels, decision making and error-prone nature.

Every single time he plays for the Hammers, we instantly look weaker at the back.

Now though, it seems like Potter will be forced into playing the former Arsenal man this weekend.

That’s because Vladimir Coufal has been ruled out until March 10th with a hamstring problem.

I believe Potter would have set up with a back three consisting of Coufal, Max Kilman and Jean-Clair Todibo for the Gunners clash, if everyone was fit and available.

Now we will most likely have to watch with our hands covering our eyes, with Mavropanos sitting in the heart of our defence.

New spate of injuries with five West Ham players now missing

It was only a couple of weeks ago when Potter got Jarrod Bowen and Edson Alvarez back from injury.

The new Hammers head coach would have been thinking that his luck was turning, but that wasn’t to be unfortunately.

New injuries to Lucas Paqueta and Vladimir Coufal mean that we now have five key men out.

Michail Antonio, Crysencio Summerville and Niclas Fullkrug are currently on the sidelines as well.

This season has been a write off on so many levels. I’m still hoping that Graham Potter manages to salvage the 2024/25 campaign, but injuries to key payers are making his task so difficult right now.

And one of those injuries forcing Potter to start Konstantinos Mavropanos for West Ham against Arsenal on Saturday means we could be in for a really rough ride in north London.