Sam Delaney has been speaking on the latest installment of the U Irons podcast, where he expressed some doubts over Said Benrahma’s ability.
The 25-year-old winger joined the Hammers in a £30m deal in January after initially joining on loan from Championship outfit Brentford last summer.
Despite arriving with a big reputation following an impressive 2019/20 campaign in the second tier, Benrahma has struggled to find his best form at the London Stadium, failing to score in any of his 26 Premier League appearances.
The Algeria international put in an improved performance last time out, though, providing an assist for Michail Antonio’s winner, but it wasn’t enough to fully convince Delaney over his quality.
He said: (14:17) “Benrahma, against a certain level of defence looks top-class, but I’m talking about his best games have been against Villa, Burnley and Leeds. All good teams don’t get me wrong, all good teams, but when we’ve seen him play even one level above that, he doesn’t look quite as devastating.
“And I just don’t know whether that is because he isn’t quite good enough, and that’s the test of a player being exceptional is when they can do it against all opposition, or whether it’s just his confidence, or when he is picked in those games Moyes just, you know, maybe Moyes puts them out there with less confidence to express themselves and he focuses more on stopping the opposition, which clearly last night he must have sent them out with a kind of lads just go for this.”
TIF Thoughts on Benrahma…
It’s not uncommon for new signings to take a season to settle in the Premier League, and although Benrahma has previous experience playing in England, the step up from the Championship is considerable.
Therefore, it is perhaps best to see how the forward is getting on in 12 months’ time before providing a conclusive judgement on the £19.8m rated star (as per Transfermarkt) as he may soon rediscover the form that earned him the move to West Ham in the first place.
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