Anwar El Ghazi was arguably Aston Villa’s worst performer in Wednesday’s 3-1 defeat to West Ham United.
The 25-year-old was given a rare start ahead of Bertrand Traore but struggled to make an impact in a less familiar right-sided role and was hooked at half-time.
No player ranked lower with Birmingham Live than El Ghazi. He was wasteful with his passes, didn’t fashion any opportunities for his teammates, failed to register a shot, lost the ball multiple times due to a poor touch and was dispossessed multiple times too.
Against West Ham, the Netherlands international had 22 touches, completed only seven of his 14 passes (50%), failed to create a chance, gave away one foul and was tackled twice. He failed to record a shot or a cross, make an interception or win a tackle on the night [Sofascore]
Although he put in a miserable performance on Wednesday, Smith might consider starting El Ghazi against Arsenal on Saturday. The 25-year-old is more accustomed to Jack Grealish’s position than Traore’s right-sided role, so he might get the nod on the left. Grealish could start in a central playmaker role and Traore may return to the right wing.
Nevertheless, these Villa fans took to Twitter to slate El Ghazi over his ineffective display last night:
https://twitter.com/amc89avfc/status/1357263139918794752?s=20
So many players off the pace tonight, el ghazi was woeful dougie sloppy grealish marked out the game , Watkins lost two balls where he shouldn’t have, cost two goals and to cap it off I think emi should have saved the third!!!!! It’s how you you bounce back that matters #avfc
— paul mclafferty (@PaulTheVillan) February 3, 2021
https://twitter.com/TommyF_AVFC/status/1357225532585369601?s=20
Also Jack Grealish was not on his game today 1 bad game in 20 aint bad but if your blaming Mcginn and Barkley for poor performance Jack and El Ghazi where equally as bad
— David Bryn Jones (@DBrynJones) February 4, 2021
watkins was our best player yesterday but we was shocking
el ghazi & barkley were miles off it
dont no why smith went with 2 no8 should of kept Mcginn as a 6 with dougie looked so good there recently lingard just sat between the lines all game caused havoc emi poor 2 #avfc— Adam M (@adam1988avfc) February 4, 2021
Not good enough at all today. Barkley and El Ghazi were very poor. Mcginn wasn't as lively as usual. I think Watkins was probably our MOTM. Fair play to West Ham though, shut us out all game. We need a big change to the lineup against Arsenal.#AVFC #AVLWHU #WHUFC https://t.co/e2dWRS79Qq
— iLennox01 (@iLennox01) February 3, 2021
