Joe Ellis

Mon 2 May 2022 14:40, UK

West Ham United could be without reliable defender Ben Johnson for the second leg of their Europa League semi-final against Eintracht Frankfurt.

According to Claret and Hugh, the 22-year-old has been suffering from a thigh strain that kept him out of yesterday’s 2-1 defeat to Arsenal in the Premier League.

But while it was hoped that he would be available for the trip to Germany on Thursday, it looks less certain that he will be a part of David Moyes’ squad for the season-defining game.

Claret and Hugh were told by a key insider that “the youngster is considered only 50/50 for the game and that a clearly out of touch Vladimir Coufal could again be involved at right-back,”

The good news for Moyes is that Kurt Zouma made it through the weekend’s test unscathed and looks set to partner Craig Dawson in the centre of defence.

Not ideal

There are much worse positions that Moyes could have suffered any injury in but it still isn’t what he would have been hoping for ahead of the Irons’ biggest game of the season.

Johnson has established himself as the club’s leading right-back when everyone is fit after a proper breakthrough 18 months or so and he deserves to play this game if he is capable of doing so.

At least with it only being a 50/50 chance of missing the game, there is still time for things to improve and he could play at least a portion of the game if not the entire 90 (or even 120) minutes.

Coufal is a decent enough back up and he’s played on some big stages on the continent already so the occasion shouldn’t faze him one bit.

At least it isn’t Michail Antonio, Declan Rice or Jarrod Bowen with question marks hanging over them because, without that trio, we wouldn’t have made it this far.

In other West Ham news, Anton Ferdinand has been begging his former club to sign this monsterous striker from a fellow Premier League rival.

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