Pundit tears into West Ham player for “shocking” mistakes against Fulham.

In one way it’s hard to imagine a performance worse than the one West Ham put in against Fulham on Sunday. On the other hand, all you’ve got to do is look back to their trip to Craven Cottage earlier this season.

The large majority of players just did not look up to the task at the weekend. There was a lack of desire, determination and a lot of individual errors. In fact, both of Fulham’s goals came from mistakes.

While both were awful, the opener was by far the worst. Mavropanos should have smashed the ball up field like any defender should when a ball over the top comes in and you’ve got two attackers around you. For some reason, the centre-back decided his best option was to attempt to control the ball which resulted in it falling to Pereira who slotted it past Fabianski.

Everyone was outraged, but talkSPORT’s Peter Groves was absolutely furious with the defender. “I’m old school, should your centre-half be trying to bring the ball down in his own 18-yard box?” Groves asked.

“The ball is coming from Iwobi from the right-hand side, comes to Mavropanos, put your laces through it, get a firm side foot, get it out the 18-yard box.”

“He’s not even aware that Pereira is behind him so as he’s taken his touch it’s gone back across goal. Another cardinal sin, you don’t put the ball back across your own goal. It’s shocking defending from Mavropanos.”

There is no doubt that Mavropanos has largely cut the mistakes out of his game, but it seems like the majority of them happen now when he is playing alongside Nayef Aguerd. Maybe he feels more comfortable when the pressure is of him as he knows he can rely on his other defensive partners?