By Louis Nixon

After the Hammers faced another defensive loss against QPR, Nuno is now left with even fewer choices than he initially had, which is a cause for concern given the upcoming fixtures West Ham has. 

Konstantinos Mavropanos, unfortunately, suffered a nasty injury against QPR which saw him be taken off on a stretcher. It’s unknown how serious the injury is, but it would be safe to conclude that he is unlikely to play against Spurs, leaving Nuno with only two senior centerbacks, that of which being Kilman and Todibo. 

There are two answers to the possibility that we now find ourselves in, one of which is the obvious answer which is to hope that the club signs a centreback.

It was exclusively revealed by ExWHUEmployee yesterday that West Ham are interested in the possibility of signing Eric Dier and i’d pressume that he’s amongst many names that we are interested in, seeing as we were already after a defender and now Mavropanos’ injury has probably extended that search further. 

However, considering that it isn’t in Nuno’s control, the only other way around the situation is trusting the youth players that we have available to us and playing the likes of Mayers in his natural position rather than out wide, or playing Golambeckis in central defence.

He could also potentially consider playing Magassa in central defence, as he’s played there previously in the youth system and squad of Monaco, but that might prove to be a risk. 

It’s certainly a tough situation and one where a lot of trouble could occur, but in these precious moments it’s important not to crack under pressure, and we’ll have to use our youth for the timebeing.

Assuming that there are no unknown injuries, we’ll likely see Todibo and Kilman continue to be the defensive pairing, but if one is to get injured or suspended, we’ll be forced to utilise Mayers or Golambeckis. But it goes without saying, West Ham fans don’t want to see Kilman playing, so maybe we should just trust the youth starting vs Tottenham on Saturday.

Given our limited options, it proves how significant and important it is at the moment to sign a defender or two, especially if we truly do want to fight to stay up.