West Ham United’s Arthur Masuaku had an afternoon to forget.
West Ham United boss Manuel Pellegrini missed the chance to get a bit of revenge on Manchester City this afternoon.
Pellegrini, sacked by the Premier League champions in 2016, saw his West Ham side comprehensively beaten 4-0 at the London Stadium.
United were big underdogs before the game anyway, but the Chilean hardly helped his chances of a shock victory by putting Arthur Masuaku at left-back.
Masuaku, a winger, is excellent going forward, but defensively he leaves a bit to be desired, meaning that his manager effectively threw him to the wolves.
Why Pellegrini concluded that pitting him against a winger as wily and as quick as Raheem Sterling is anyone’s guess.
Fans of the East London club tore into the 25-year-old on Twitter after the game, and rightly so because he was partially complicit in the 3-0 first-half demolition, losing Sterling’s run for the second goal.
But Masuaku didn’t put himself at left-back, Pellegrini did, and it’s worth making that allowance when criticising the former Olympiacos star.
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