Football.london’s Jonty Colman was left unimpressed by the performance put in by West Ham United’s Ben Johnson yesterday, handing him a 5/10 rating.
The Hammers suffered back-to-back defeats, which would not have been the way David Moyes hoped his side would’ve started their Premier League campaign, however, considering they finished the game with 2.47 expected goals, West Ham can count themselves seriously unlucky.
West Ham had their opportunities to claw back at least a point against Nottingham Forest, none more so than when Declan Rice missed a costly spot kick. Although, Moyes made clear post-match that he was more angered by the way his side defended – or attempted to do so – for Forest’s winning goal (37:20) which saw Johnson stick out a leg and kick the ball off of Taiwo Awoniyi and into the back of the net.
Colman handed Johnson the lowest score for the Hammers, which was a 5/10, with his reasoning being:
Are you worried about West Ham this season?
Yes!
No!
“Injuries meant that Ben Johnson was once again used as a centre-back with Zouma, but instead, he and his French colleague switched sides. Less convincing than he was against City, with a number of his clearances and tackles not having enough on them, one of which led to Brennan Johnson’s goal, that was later disallowed.”
TIF Thoughts on Johnson’s performance…
While it was Ben Johnson’s lacklustre interception that led to the only goal of the game, he also got very lucky, as Colman mentioned, as Brennan Johnson’s goal was ultimately ruled out by VAR after the Hammers defender’s weak header fell to the opposition just outside the 18-yard box.
It wasn’t just the obvious errors that showed Johnson having a poor game, as his underlying numbers were also worrying, with the centre-back failing to win a single tackle all afternoon, according to FBref, which will be very alarming for Moyes, especially with a whole load of his other options out injured, as was made clear by the need to name two goalkeepers on the bench on Sunday.