Max Kilman and Konstantinos Mavropanos are getting back to their best at West Ham in the Championship.
In the last couple of matches, a partnership between West Ham’s central defenders Mavropanos and Kilman really seems to be blooming in front of our eyes.
Two players who have not had too many ups and a lot of downs in East London look like they’re becoming the defensive duo the Hammers so desperately needed coming into Championship football.
The first couple of games in the Championship season were worrying for West Ham, conceding twice in both matches.
We started well against Burnley, then once we had gone 2-0 up we went ultra-defensive, and that showed the weaknesses of the whole team, including Max and Dinos at the heart of the defence.
Then we lost to Charlton, conceding an avoidable early goal and then practically giving them a second due to a massive mistake from Mavropanos. The Greek defender was heavily responsible for both goals.
Golambeckis came in for the next couple of games due to Mavropanos’ injury, and Kilman looked pretty good alongside the eighteen-year-old academy product against Southampton and Watford
Then Dinos came back in for the Wolves game; it was his poor defending that allowed Munetsi to score for their opening goal, and he scored an own goal in the same match.
However, in that match, he also scored a goal, and Kilman also scored this season against Burnley.
That Wolves game was the start of a switch for Nuno; I think he realised this squad’s strength is attacking, not defending. We needed to play more on the front foot, more aggressively, the centre-backs included.
Both Kilman and Mavropanos are very talented players, but their best traits aren’t ones that suit Nuno’s normal defence-first style, and that’s why we’ve looked so poor defensively for a lot of his time at the club, other than when Disasi was here.
We needed to switch to a more attacking style for our best players, who are our attacking players, to win us the game, rather than relying on our defence, who really aren’t built to play that way to get wins.
Since the switch against Wolves, we have conceded goals, but we’ve scored more. in our last four, we’ve conceded four and scored a huge sixteen, and Dinos has scored three of those.
Neither Kilman nor Mavropanos are ‘proper’ defenders; they don’t want to camp on the edge of their box and constantly make clearances and head the ball away. They want to be aggressive; they want to be high up the pitch; they want to play in possession almost like deep midfielders, and that’s what they’re finally doing.
On top of that, they have kept two clean sheets in the last two matches. I don’t think anyone is expecting us to keep getting shutouts, but they’re playing in a style they want to play in, and it’s really benefiting them and the team both offensively and defensively.
I still don’t think these two together will ever be good enough to succeed in the Premier League, but that’s not a problem right now. We need to get out of the Championship, and they’re doing a great job of that so far.
