With David Moyes’ West Ham United side heading into Sunday’s Premier League clash on a run of six games without defeat in all competitions, the 58-year-old Hammers boss would have undoubtedly been hoping his side could maintain this impressive run when Liverpool visited the London Stadium.
And, a first-half own-goal from Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson, followed by a second-half Pablo Fornals strike and a 74th-minute Kurt Zouma header proved to be enough for West Ham to deal the Reds their first defeat of the Premier League season, with Trent Alexander-Arnold’s free-kick and Divock Origi’s fantastic late strike proving to be mere consolations as the Hammers ran out 3-2 winners in East London.
As is perhaps to be expected after such a result, a number of Moyes’ men turned in rather remarkable performances over the course of the 90 minutes, with match-winner Zouma perhaps being the pick of the bunch, however, the performance of first-half substitute Craig Dawson should not be overlooked.
Won 100% duels
Despite starting the fixture on the bench, Angelo Ogbonna’s injury 22 minutes into the match saw the 31-year-old centre-back thrown into proceedings, and he certainly did not disappoint.
Indeed, over his 68 minutes on the pitch, the £2.7m-rated defender made four clearances, blocked three shots, made two interceptions and won one tackle, as well as not being dribbled past by an opponent once.
The £42k-per-week man also won all five of his duels – a success rate of 100% – completed both of his attempted dribbles and had two attempts at the Liverpool goal – one of which hit the crossbar.
These returns saw the player who Alan Pardew dubbed an “incredible” talent earn a SofaScore match rating of 7.5, with no West Ham player receiving a higher score than the former England U21 international.
Indeed, Football.London’s West Ham correspondent Tom Clarke also appeared impressed with the performance of the substitute, awarding Dawson a seven in his own match ratings, as well as stating of the defender’s display: “Made a number of vital blocks as Liverpool ramped up the pressure on West Ham. Won the ball back in the build-up to Fornals’ goal and was a huge aerial threat at set-pieces.”
As such, while it would appear unlikely that Ogbonna’s facial injury will keep him out of action for longer than the two-week international break that is now upon us, Dawson will nevertheless have proven to Moyes that he is more than capable of doing a job in the heart of the Hammers defence, as the 31-year-old well and truly stole the show against Liverpool on Sunday.
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