West Ham United’s Pablo Fornals should be feeling rather embarrassed about his performance for the Hammers in the FA Cup.
Whilst West Ham United are doing well in the Premier League right now, currently sitting in the driving seat for a place in Europe by sitting 5th, one thing that would really make the season a success would be some silverware to go with it and grab their first major honour since winning the FA Cup back in 1980.
However, that won’t be the case for David Moyes’ men this season as they were knocked out of the competition by Southampton after falling 3-1 at St Mary’s.
Whilst there were some players who could take the blame for the result, one player in particular who didn’t do much to impress was the 26-year-old Spaniard Fornals as he wasn’t exactly a force when it came to generating anything in attack.
As per SofaScore, he lost possession a total of 20 times, couldn’t connect with any of his five crosses, was unsuccessful with both of his dribble attempts and couldn’t muster a single shot on target before he was dragged off and replaced with 15 minutes to go by Nikola Vlasic.
His performance earned him a rating of just 6/10 from Jack Rosser in the London Evening Standard, although he did praise him for his hard work on the night stating that he ‘worked tirelessly in the wing-back role’.
TIF Thoughts on Jack Rosser’s rating on Pablo Fornals at West Ham United
Have you been impressed with Fornals so far this season?
Yes
No
Whilst Rosser might praise him for his hard work, at the end of the day it comes down to results, and the stats tell a different story about what he was able to bring to the game.
It certainly wasn’t the best attacking performance from Fornals, and it was certainly out of character for a player who has been impressive for West Ham United this season especially in an attacking sense.
When it comes to the league, he ranks in the top five for the Hammers in terms of goals scored, shots per game, key passes whilst completing 78.2% of his passes (via WhoScored), but obviously he just wasn’t at the races tonight.
Hopefully this isn’t a performance that we’re going to see from him again between now and the end of the season, because they are going to need him to keep producing the way he has all season if they are to have any chance of finishing the season strong and ending up in Europe.
In other news: Serious upgrade: £27m star will be a forgotten man if big West Ham rumour comes true – opinion