WHZ Stats: West Ham forward Yarmolenko fails to impress in Ukraine defeat
West Ham forward Andriy Yarmolenko did not start the current international break on a good note on Wednesday in Ukraine’s 2-0 defeat to Poland.
Yarmolenko, 31, has failed to start a single Premier League match for the Hammers this season and didn’t really improve his chances of ending his spell on David Moyes’ bench by missing a penalty in Chorzów this week.
In the 11th minute, Yarmolenko won a penalty after being fouled in the Poland box but his resulting spot-kick hit the post despite the goalkeeper going the wrong way.
And it wasn’t just the missed penalty that meant Yarmolenko didn’t have a good game in the friendly against Poland.
Stats by WyScout show that the West Ham attacker didn’t have any other shots at goal other than his spot kick, failed to complete his two attempted crosses, completed just two of his six dribbles and only made one progressive run.
On average in the Premier League this season, Yarmolenko has completed 25 per cent of his crosses, 83.3 per cent of dribbles and averaged 4.35 progressive runs per 90 minutes of football.
Clearly, it wasn’t Yarmolenko’s finest hour and after such a dismal first half, was he was substituted off at half-time.
Up next for Ukraine is a Nations League showdown against Germany on Saturday before the Eastern European nation travel to Switzerland on Tuesday.
Neither of those matches will be particularly easy for Ukraine but Yarmolenko proved against Spain last month that he is able to shine against the biggest European nations.
Let’s hope there’s an improvement from him against Germany and Switzerland because he needs to step up his game if he wants to play his way back into Moyes’ starting line-up.
In other West Ham news, the Hammers have had their plans approved for a new statue at the London Stadium.