OPINION
West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini should forget about giving centre-back Winston Reid another shot this summer and should get rid of the 30-year-old.
According to Football Insider, Pellegrini was prepared to offload the 24-time New Zealand international this summer, but the Hammers boss has instead changed his mind and will now give Reid a pre-season to prove himself.
If this is indeed a decision that has been made by Pellegrini, it is a bad one, not least because of the options West Ham have at their disposal at the back already.
The East London club signed Issa Diop for a then-club-record fee of £22million around this time last year [Source: BBC), and he went on to assert himself at the back for West Ham, making 33 Premier League appearances.
Alongside him, Pellegrini has Fabian Balbuena and Angelo Ogbonna, who made 23 and 24 top-flight appearances respectively.
So not only do West Ham not need another centre-back, but having seen Reid’s recent record, he is not the kind of player who will likely force his way back into the team,
The defender has not played a single game of football since March last year when he suffered a knee injury that required surgery. After that, there were then a raft of other issues that kept him out of the team.
Therefore, it is going to take a monumental effort for Reid to get a shot at first-team football, and even if he does, he is not likely to replace the likes of Diop or Balbuena at the back.
Football Insider add, however, that the fact that Reid is a high earner at West Ham and has three years left on his current deal mean that he will be hard to offload.
At this rate, however, Pellegrini would be much better offloading him than keeping him around. He is simply not needed.