By Louis Nixon

Malick Diouf had an underwhelming final game against Aston Villa before he departed for AFCON, but was it all his fault? 

The entirety of the defence against Aston Villa had an alarming performance; it wasn’t pretty by any means and overall was totally lacklustre. However, one of the primary elements of concern was Malick Diouf, who struggled with his defensive ability throughout the game, an issue that ultimately cost us a goal, which would have given Aston Villa the win. 

However, despite his errors, not all blame can be put upon him, for the first goal it’s gone in off of Mavropanos’ head, the cross wasn’t good enough to reach Watkins’ head and a bit of misfortune saw that go in.

As well as this, for Aston Villa’s second, Diouf was left in an extremely vulnerable position due to Summerville and Paqueta, the Brazilian trying one of his many skill moves and this time it had gone wrong, as well as Summerville who drifted into a striker position rather than winger, one in which Diouf and Nuno would complain about seeing as the ball could go nowhere apart from the Villa forward. 

Whilst these errors weren’t directly caused by said player, Diouf should still be the recipient of criticism given the fact that if he had defended better or been in a better position, who knows what could’ve happened, but these are all if, buts and maybes. 

However, we mustn’t forget Diouf’s previous performances, where he has not lived up to the standard that many have hoped for, so questions will inevitably be raised. 

Malick Diouf is now off to AFCON with Senegal, where he will miss a handful of games for the Hammers, which some may see as a blessing in disguise, given recent games and inevitably Ollie Scarles will return to the starting squad if fully fit. 

However, it does feel that Malick Diouf may be the pinpoint piñata of blame, given that it’s harsh to single out his personal performance, given that no one demonstrated good defensive capabilities in the defence, and to be specific, he made 6 defensive contributions, the second most of the back four, with Wan-Bissaka and Todibo both making fewer than him. 

Some Hammers fans might be eager to see Diouf leave for AFCON, but his overall performances haven’t been as bad as people have made it out to be. All players have bad games, but some are blamed more than others for their performances.