West Ham are incredibly light in the centre of midfield.
Declan Rice and Mark Noble are the clear first choice partnership, but David Moyes has little in reserve.
Carlos Sanchez is quite clearly not good enough, and the club’s younger players are not yet ready for regular Premier League action.
So taking all of that into consideration, it seems very strange that the Hammers decided to sell Pedro Obiang in the summer.
The 27-year-old central midfielder left the London Stadium for Sassuolo six months ago, having spent four years at the club.
The Serie A side paid just £7.2 million for Obiang’s services, according to BBC Sport, and in this day and age, it could be argued that they got a real bargain.
How West Ham have missed the midfielder. He was never the most talented or technically proficient, but his industry, tenacity and energy was up there with the very best.
The Hammers are really bereft of any kind of physicality and dynamism in the middle of the park. And to buy someone with quality who can bring that will cost at least three times what they sold Obiang for.
With hindsight, the move to sell the 27-year-old for just £7.2 million seems to make little sense. But the manager at the time Manuel Pellegrini must have realised this. Unless he was forced into selling Obiang?
We don’t know any of this of course, so it’s all conjecture, but whatever happened, David Moyes will surely be wishing that he still had the Sassuolo man at the club.
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