West Ham United midfielder Robert Snodgrass would have been left “raging” after their shock Carabao Cup defeat against Oxford United, according to Alan Hutton.
The Hammers were embarrassed by their League One counterparts on Wednesday evening, with Karl Robinson’s side thrashing the Premier League outfit 4-0 at the Kassam Stadium.
Manuel Pellegrini made nine changes to his starting line-up for the fixture, giving some of his fringe players the chance to impress. One of those was former Leeds United and Norwich City winger Snodgrass, who has been a backup player in the league so far this term and has just started one of their six matches.
Hutton, of course, played with Snodgrass quite a bit, indeed they were together at Aston Villa in the 2017/18 season and have also both represented the Scottish national team.
He therefore knows his compatriot well and leapt to his defence after the game. Speaking to Football Insider about Snodgrass, Hutton said: “That is one guy I know who would have been raging. I guarantee you that he wasn’t happy.
“Snoddy’s the type of guy that if he played bad last night, I bet he ran about and he tackled and he worked hard. He’d give everything, always.
“Sometimes you have an off night which is fine, but the least you expect off a player is 100 per cent. I’m sure he would have been one of the main voices in the changing room at half time and full time.”
However, despite Hutton’s comments, when you look at the stats it is hard to defend Snodgrass’ performance.
Statistically, he was one of the Hammers’ weakest players on the night, making zero key passes, zero accurate crosses and zero dribbles. He also had the worst passing accuracy of any West Ham player on the pitch, completing just 60.7% of his passes (via WhoScored).
Whilst Hutton may be right in suggesting the Scotland international tried hard, that doesn’t hide the fact that his performance, along with the rest of the team, was simply not good enough.
West Ham fans, what did you make of the performance at Oxford? Did anybody stand out? Let us know in the comments below!
