BT Sport pundit Carlton Cole blasts West Ham United signing Emerson during FCSB win
Carlton Cole slammed new West Ham defender Emerson Palmieri for his role in the Hammers going behind to FCSB in their Europa Conference League game.
The Romanian visitors went one up at the London Stadium in the 34th minute of a dismal first half, when Andrei Cordea snuck in behind the oblivious Italian international at the back post to slot in a Darius Olaru cross past Alphonse Areola.
Although a much-improved performance after the break saw the home side come back and win 3-1, with the former Chelsea man scoring his first goal for the club to make amends in between a Jarrod Bowen penalty and a late Michail Antonio strike, former West Ham striker Cole was not impressed while they were trailing 1-0 at the break.
Speaking at half time of the BT Sport match coverage on Thursday night (8 September, 8.54pm) an exasperated he said: “This is schoolboy stuff. He doesn’t even look once.”
Joe Cole then backed him up, saying: “No he doesn’t. You want a player in this position to be a what-if player… You’ve got to get your body shape right and look over your shoulder to see where the attacker is, and that summed up the night for me.”
Sluggish
It was a pretty dreadful opening 45-minutes at in Stratford as the rain poured over a flat performance and a muted crowd who had turned up following the news that the Queen had died.
Only fellow new boy Flynn Downes came out of the half with much credit, and the second of the two Coles was right that the sloppiness from Emerson to let the ball come past him with no knowledge that an attacker was behind summed up the play.
Had his night ended at half time it would have been a concerning outing, as it arguably was for Gianluca Scamacca up front, who struggled before being hooked for Antonio.
Luckily for the left-back he was given the opportunity to redeem himself along with the team and duly did that after the interval with a sharper showing and a goal.
He blasted the ball in via the keeper in the 74th minute to quickly turn the game around following Bowen’s long-delayed penalty for a foul on Maxwel Cornet.
With upcoming games currently postponed it has turned out to be all the more important to psychologically right the wrongs of the game at Stamford Bridge last weekend while the opportunity was there, and thankfully they did that in the second half for a first win in the group.