Alphonse Areola has been in really poor form for West Ham this season, and he hasn’t played for us since our 4-1 defeat to Tottenham back in October.

West Ham signed Alphonse Areola initially on loan from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2021, before making his deal a permanent one for around £8 million a year later.

His shot-stopping ability and incredible reflexes have never been called into question. However, he is far from a complete goalkeeper.

The Frenchman’s lack of authority when commanding his penalty area is a real problem, and his distribution has been quite frankly terrible this season.

It came as a surprise to nobody when he was dropped for the home game against Manchester United back in October, with Lukasz Fabianski coming into the side to take his place.

Areola has actually turned out to be a real disappointment for the Hammers as far as I’m concerned.

And the West Ham coaching staff clearly haven’t been too happy with him either.

What West Ham ace Alphonse Areola did caused real concern

If we’re all being honest with ourselves, the former PSG man has failed to hit the hieghts that were expected of him at the London Stadium.

It’s no coincidence that we’ve conceded so many goals over the past 15 months, with Areola as our starting goalkeeper.

I actually believe that the Hammers need to sign a top-class number one, if we are to make any genuine progress over the next few years.

It seems like Areola could be on borrowed time at West Ham.

According to a report from The Athletic, it was Areola’s performance during our 4-1 win over Ipswich Town at the start of October that really raised some eyebrows.

Sure we won the game, but it must be said that we conceded a really poor goal.

Liam Delap levelled the scores after West Ham had taken an early lead in the game, beating Areola at his near post with a decently struck shot from just inside the box.

It was poor goalkeeping of the very highest order, and he followed that up with an atrocious performance away at Tottenham two weeks later.

Alphonse Areola will undoubtedly be working hard to get back into the West Ham starting lineup, but I reckon his time in East London could well be done.

MORE WEST HAM NEWS

Crying like I’ve rarely cried” – Player on difficult West Ham ending, and why he had to leave

Pablo Fornals spent over four years at West Ham United before leaving them for Real Betis on deadline day of the winter 2024 market.

David Moyes was in charge at West Ham last season and didn’t rely upon the midfielder in the first half of the season. To put it in context, he clocked in 419 minutes from 15 league games… of which 180 minutes were in his last two matches for West Ham.

The 28-year-old appeared as a guest on Offsiders and his comments are relayed by Estadio Deportivo.

West Ham signed him from Villarreal in 2019, when Manuel Pellegrini was in charge at the London club. Fornals was a regular for the Hammers in his first four years and was a key part of their UEFA Conference League winning squad during the 2022/23 season.

The Spaniard has revealed West Ham helped to fulfil his dream of playing in the Premier League. Towards the end, he had difficulties and has explained why he had to leave the English club.

‘I’d like to play as number 9!’ |…
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“In the Premier League, I had fulfilled a dream, but when you are no longer so happy when you get home, they notice it too. My son had a hard time adapting to the school there… We saw that it was time to leave and how lucky we were to arrive at Betis,” he said.
“I fulfilled my contract at the end of last season, but in England the clubs have the option to extend it for another year unilaterally, which in Spain is illegal without negotiating.
“I arrived one day, and they told me that they had signed me for another year. That’s it, I saw myself there another year; but at Christmas offers came and we wanted to return to Spain.”

There were some concerns Real Betis weren’t able to finalise the deal on deadline day and the transfer was officially confirmed the following day. The former West Ham shared what he went through during that period.

“The Betis thing happened, but it almost didn’t happen. The transfer did not arrive, West Ham made a mistake in some information and the operation was not completed, the same thing happened to Benhrama and me,” Fornals explained.

“It didn’t agree with the data that Betis sent, and it wasn’t done. It’s already been February 2nd, with the market closed, because UEFA allows it. It was shown that there was no bad faith, just an error and in the application, it was seen that West Ham tried to replicate the data 10 or 11 times.

“I was at the stadium, there had been a match that day. It was 11pm. I said goodbye to my teammates, the coach made a beautiful speech, we were all excited, hugging each other, and I was crying like I’ve rarely cried in my life… and it was 00:00 [12am] without the signing being completed, so in theory I had to train the next day with West Ham. Fortunately, UEFA saw that the numbers worked out and authorised it.”