Angelo Ogbonna keen to praise West Ham team-mates for clean sheet at Aston Villa

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West Ham defender Angelo Ogbonna was keen to praise the entire team for the clean sheet picked up with ten men against Aston Villa on Monday night.

As per West Ham’s official website, Ogbonna hailed substitute Pablo Fornals as well, despite the fact he has made just one Premier League start so far, as per Transfermarkt.

He said: “We deserved more than one point. Everyone worked hard and last season maybe we wouldn’t have got the point. I want to talk about the team. Seb did really well up front, Issa did really well against the strikers, Ryan did really well, even Arthur too.

“The attackers, Manu, [Felipe, Andriy] kept the ball and tried to find the right place, Nobes, Declan as well. It was a fantastic game, even when Pablo came in for us it was really important. He ran a lot – the guys understand the importance of the game and it was an important point for us.”

TBR’s View – Fornals still waiting to show what he can do

The promising thing for West Ham is that Fornals is a central playmaker who came on out wide in a team playing with 10 men and ran himself into the ground to the extent that Ogbonna felt it worthy of note.

He hasn’t yet shown the quality he can bring from the centre of the park or nailed down the starting spot he might have expected, but if he keeps that attitude up, it should come.

There’s been plenty of talk in recent days about a more resilient, hard-working West Ham side and that means the likes of Fornals need to buy into that. It looks like he has.