WHZ View: Diop fails to shake off rust with disappointing West Ham display v Palace

Issa Diop returned to the West Ham starting line-up for the first time since September on Wednesday night when the Irons drew 1-1 with Crystal Palace at the London Stadium.

David Moyes had regularly named a back-three of Angelo Ogbonna, Fabian Balbuena and Aaron Cresswell this season but due to Arthur Masuaku’s injury, that changed to a back-four against Leeds last week with Ogbonna and Balbuena in the middie.

However, Balbuena suffered an injury in training ahead of the Palace game on Wednesday and Diop was drafted in to start alongside Ogbonna.

It could have been down to rustiness but Diop simply failed to deliver against Palace on Wednesday with Christian Benteke making a mockery out of him in the air.

According to stats by Wyscout, Diop failed to win any of his four aerial duels against Roy Hodgson’s side. He also failed to make any clearances and won just one interception. In comparison, Balbuena has averaged 6.1 interceptions and 3.69 clearances per 90 minutes in all competitions this season.

Diop’s poor performance in the air is why Palace led the game at half-time through Benteke.

Below is an image of Diop and Benteke ahead of the Belgian’s goal. As you can see Diop is watching the ball out wide rather than having eyes on Benteke.

Next, you can see how Diop loses his footing. He fails to judge the flight of the ball and takes a step backwards while Benteke steps forward to leap up and win the ball.

Although Diop manages to throw himself at the ball, you can see below just how far away from it he is due to not being able to read the flight of the ball closely nor being able to keep track of where Benteke was.

In defence to Diop, he came up against one of the best strikers in the Premier League when it comes to winning headers. According to Wyscout, he’s won 57.41 per cent of aerial duels this season – no top-flight striker has a higher success rate.

Up next for West Ham is a clash away at Chelsea on Monday night.

Frank Lampard’s side are without a win in three, losing their last two Premier League matches to Everton and Wolves.

They’ll be desperate to bounce back and if someone like Olivier Giroud starts up front, you would imagine Diop will have a tough time.

Let’s hope Balbuena is back in time for the trip to Stamford Bridge.

In other West Ham news, this was our moment of the match against Palace.