West Ham United manager David Moyes believes that the Hammers would be higher in the Premier League table if they had had centre-back Nayef Aguerd fit sooner in the season. The £30million summer signing from Stade Rennais, who starred for Morocco at the 2022 World Cup, has missed most of the season so far, sustaining an ankle injury in pre-season against Rangers. Aguerd only made his Premier League debut for the Hammers on November 12 against Leicester City, in West Ham’s final match before the season paused for the World Cup. Having returned from the World Cup with a short illness, Aguerd did not make his full league debut until the January 4 draw away at Leeds United and he has started each of the last four league games. On Saturday, Aguerd played a starring role in the 1-1 draw away at Newcastle United. Speaking about his performance, Moyes felt that should Aguerd have been available for more of the season to date, the Hammers would not currently be sat 17th and only clear of the relegation zone by a point.
David Moyes said: “I do, yeah. If you look at the centre-half formation we had to play in the opening four or five games of the season, we had no centre-halves with Craig Dawson injured, with Angelo Ogbonna not back from the cruciate [injury]. We were really toiling at the start of the season.”
Moyes also went on to praise Aguerd, who he had been pursuing for two years prior to signing him from Ligue 1 side Rennes. Indeed, the Hammers’ boss felt that the defender was among the best left-footed centre-backs in Ligue 1 alongside Sven Botman and Benoit Badiashile, who have gone on to join Newcastle United and Chelsea respectively this season.
David Moyes added: “I’ve got to say I compare him a lot to [Sven] Botman. Botman and [Nayef] Aguerd I thought were probably the two best left footed centre-backs in France. Obviously there’s the boy who has gone to Chelsea (Benoit Badiashile) and there’s a few others but they were in a similar category. And we lost our centre-half for six months at the start of the season when he got an injury at Ibrox [against Rangers] in a pre-season friendly. So he’s only played four or five Premier League games and it’s been a huge miss and you can see what he has done to us, even today [at Newcastle], and if you look at our results since he has come into the team it has been a big, big difference to us.”
