West Ham United: David Moyes must take off Aaron Cresswell at half-time v Leverkusen
West Ham manager David Moyes must withdraw West Ham defender Aaron Cresswell at the break in the Europa League match against Bayer Leverkusen after he was run ragged.
West Ham veteran Cresswell lined up on the left of a back three as West Ham started with a cautious 3-4-2-1 formation in Leverkusen, but has still been bypassed several times by the hosts’ attack.
It’s still goalless as the teams head into half-time at the BayArena, but Leverkusen’s relentless attacking has often seen Cresswell looking isolated and vulnerable in defence.
Mohammed Kudus spurned an early chance for the Hammers, but since then it’s been one-way traffic towards Lukasz Fabianski’s goal, with Cresswell his side’s lowest-rated player on SofaScore at just 6.4 going into half-time.
Culling Cresswell for Aguerd may be answer for Moyes
West Ham posted on X with their starting 11 before the match, suggesting that they’d be operating in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation with regular left-back Emerson pushing forward into midfield.
Cresswell instead started at left-centre-back with the added protection of Emerson in a wing-back role, yet has still been run ragged down the flanks by the incessant running of Jeremie Frimpong.
SofaScore‘s stats don’t look too kind for Cresswell, with the defender having completed just one defensive clearance and losing the ball five times already, winning neither of his on-the-ball duels so far.
Completing 13 of his 16 attempted passes thus far, Cresswell has seen just one long ball from two attempts come off and is yet to try a shot, cross, or complete a successful dribble as Leverkusen prevented him from moving into the attacking positions.
He and Paqueta both switched off at the far post as Florian Wirtz swung in a cross, with Frimpong unlucky not to send his looping free header on-target.
If West Ham are set to have their backs to the wall for the entire half, they should bring Nayef Aguerd on in Cresswell’s place.
Aguerd has an average rating of 7.35 in the Europa League this season, and bringing him into the three-man defence would allow Emerson and Vladimir Coufal to push much further forward on the counter for West Ham.
In other news, a new update has emerged surrounding the Hammers’ pursuit of Brentford forward Ivan Toney this summer.
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