Felipe Rodrigues da Silva, better known as ‘Morato’ has a huge role to play at West Ham this season.
When West Ham announced the loan signing of Morato, we all thought it would be Kilman he was competing for a place in the team with, not Scarles.
But just two months into the season, it feels like the Brazilian, who is naturally a central defender, has displaced Ollie Scarles at left-back.
When El-Hadji Malick Diouf left and we replaced him with Adama Boiro, I was worried. And rightly so, we’ve seen nothing of the Spaniard so far, and probably for good reason.
However, thankfully, like he did at Nottingham Forest last season, Morato has been able to cover the left side of defence pretty well.
Scarles himself has been really poor, especially going forward. His final ball has really been letting him down so far this season. Morato has looked better in attack straight away, even getting an assist on his first start against Wrexham.
Yes, you can tell he isn’t a natural full-back by his lack of agility, but Scarles doesn’t exactly have that in abundance either.
Standing a 6’5, Morato also increases the physical presence in both boxes which is going to be key for us and our title push. Not only has he got an assist, he also scored a goal in our EFL Cup defeat to Premier League Fulham.
Neither Scarles or Morato are the perfect option for us, but the Brazilian has a lot more positives to his game that the Englishman does right now.
I’d love to see Morato be the ‘starting’ left-back, at lease until we can address that position again in January if needed.
