Saturday's trip to Wolves will be a seminal game for David Moyes, Molineaux is never a good place to get a result, under Bruno Lage Wolves have consolidated and are now on an upward curve playing some decent football in the process. Part of Hammers recent success has been based on being able to name an unchanged starting line up, that of course will not be possible this weekend due to Angelo Ogbonna's injury.
So who does David Moyes bring in as Ogbonna's replacement, Craig Dawson or Issa Diop? Moyes is known to be a cautious type and may select Dawson on the basis that he was a regular starter until he was replaced by new signing Kurt Zouma.
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Both Dawson and Diop have their plus points, but they both have areas of their game that need improvement and will struggle to fill Ogbonna's boots. Dawson has a tendency to commit fouls in dangerous areas and lacks pace, whereas Diop has all the pace in the World, but lacks judgement on crucial decisions.
If this were a purely academic situation then Diop would be the obvious choice, he is a superb athlete and possesses good footballing skills, he DOES make errors, but then it is easy to forget how young he is due to his impressive 6'4" frame. We believe that if he plays more games he will get better and better, the problem is the Premier League is an unforgiving environment where errors are invariably punished.
Dawson is an out and out old school centre back who rarely ventures forward successfully, except when it comes to dead ball situations when he suddenly becomes an aerial beast, ironically fans have been heard saying he MUST be brought on in games where Hammers are up against a resolute defence, JUST because he is so good at corners and free kicks.
Both Dawson and Diop are decent replacements for Ogbonna, the are not perfect but they could be a lot worse and will have to get on with it. Moyes will probably elect to play Dawson, but with 'Les's' selection comes the caveat that he could get 'shredded' by Traore, to be fair most players would, but we feel Diop is better equipped to deal with Traore's speed and physicality.
Moyes will be only too aware of the threat Traore represents, the Iron's manager and his staff will have measured up the pro's and con's of both players and come to their collective decision Of course Moyes could throw a curve ball by selecting Jamal Baptiste instead! - Ed
