West Ham United: Danny Murphy slams Emerson for ‘really poor’ moment v Man United
Danny Murphy has slammed Emerson for his involvement in Manchester United scoring their second goal against West Ham when the sides met on Sunday (4 February).
Speaking on Match of the Day 2 on Sunday (51:03), the pundit said it was “really poor” defending from the Italian international to not close down winger Alejandro Garnacho before his deflected effort hit the back of the net.
He added that it was “unacceptable” for the 29-year-old left-back to be tired after he was working his way back down the field following his wayward shot just moments earlier when he was through on goal in the Hammers’ 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford.
“What you see as this builds up is he’s tired from the run forward and his defending suffers from it,” said Murphy. “It ends up coming out left and when Man United switch the ball and it ends up back at Garnacho’s feet, what we’ll see when we go to the close-up is he doesn’t get close.
“He’s sitting off him because he’s tired, he doesn’t really have the anger, aggression or tenacity in his defending. Too easy. Look, barely a gesture to go to the ball, really poor defending.
“He’s getting the air in through his nose because he was tired and that is unacceptable. That’s poor defending, don’t make the runs forward if you can’t get back and do your job properly.”
Game-defining moment for Emerson and West Ham
It was certainly a game-defining moment for West Ham when Emerson missed a guilt-edged chance at one end and wasn’t good enough defensively inside his box.
He struck his shot high and wide of the goal when he just had Andre Onana to beat and then he was clearly struggling to catch his breath when Man United broke forward quickly on the counter.
The Italian’s main job is to do his defensive work and, if he can’t be doing that and providing an attacking outlet, then he needs to work on his fitness because it’s the minimum requirement for a modern-day fullback.
He has been a fairly consistent performer for the Hammers since joining the club, but given the number of games he plays due to David Moyes not favouring Aaron Cresswell anymore, it feels like a younger option would be good to come in and share the load.
While it wasn’t the worst performance from us in the first half, some of the defending after the break was pretty shocking and must improve if we want to achieve anything this season.
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