OPINION
West Ham attacker Samir Nasri should take umbrage over Georgie Bingham’s verdict on his brief spell at the Hammers.
The host of talkSPORT’s Weekend Sports Breakfast shared that while she rarely made football predictions, she knew from the start that the 31-year-old attacking midfielder wouldn’t succeed at the London Stadium as he has been overweight for the last three years.
“Samir Nasri has been released by West Ham…that didn’t work,” said Bingham on talkSPORT (9:38am, Saturday June 8th).
“I rarely make football predictions but I predicted that wouldn’t work, he has been overweight for the last three years of his career.”
The Hammers previously confirmed via their official website that Nasri was set to depart the club once his contract expires at the end of June.
However just because the 31-year-old isn’t being kept on for another season, it doesn’t mean Manuel Pellegrini was wrong to sign him.
The 31-year-old featured six times for the Hammers after joining them in January, and while he didn’t appear many times; he did make a noticeable impact.
Nasri during some of his appearances rolled back the clock and was a handful for the Hammers’ opponents.
The fact the veteran was able to rack up two assists in his outings showed that when he was able to play, he still had that touch of quality.
While it’s true that injuries stopped him from featuring more and likely played a part in him departing the London Stadium this summer, it’s way too harsh of Bingham to claim it was never going to work.
It was also very harsh to question his weight as by all accounts Nasri put in the work to drop the pounds.
Ahead of signing a short-team deal for the club, Pellegrini revealed that the 31-year-old had been training hard with West Ham and pointed out that he had lost some weight.
“Samir is working with us very well, he is losing weight, his mentality is to try and have a spot here with the squad, so we will see in the next days,” said Pellegrini in December, as quoted by Sky Sports.
The 31-year-old attacking midfielder was also going to struggle to get down to his ideal weight, given he’d previously been without football for a notable period, but he deserves credit for getting in as good a shape as he did.
So with that in mind, Nasri should take umbrage with Bingham’s harsh verdict on his exit as while it didn’t work out, it’s not like it was a complete failure.