West Ham signed Aaron Wan-Bissaka in a £15m deal from Manchester United (Getty)
Michael Owen has criticised West Ham’s decision to sign Aaron Wan-Bissaka after their 3-0 defeat to Chelsea.
Chelsea ran out comfortable winners at the London Stadium in Saturday’s early kick-off with two first-half goals from Nicolas Jackson plus an excellent finish from Cole Palmer.
The result means West Ham have now lost all three of their games at home this season under Julen Lopetegui.
Wan-Bissaka, meanwhile, joined West Ham in a £15 million deal from Manchester United in the summer but Owen believes the 26-year-old is not suited to Lopetegui’s current tactics.
‘If you’re West Ham, if you’re the manager, the recruitment officer, whoever you are at West Ham, and you’re wanting a full-back to play in this, the last person you go and guy is Wan-Bissaka,’ Owen told Premier League Productions.
Michael Owen says Aaron Wan-Bissaka is ‘being utilised in the wrong way’ by West Ham (Shutterstock)
‘Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s brilliant, he’s probably the best right-back in terms of defensively in the country in the Premier League.
‘But if you’re going to ask somebody to get up wide and high and come inside and play central, I don’t know why you’d get Wan-Bissaka.
‘That’s not his game – his game is plugging the gaps, he’s not letting anything past, he’s a brilliant defender, he’s not brilliant going forward.
‘Yet they [West Ham] are utilising him in totally the wrong way. It’s a very strange buy if they’re going to utilise him like that.’
Former West Ham striker Jermain Defoe added: ‘Do you know what’s interesting, even looking at the goals and you see how much space Nicolas Jackson had, not just him, their forward players to run into, I can’t remember seeing Wan-Bissaka play like that ever.
‘I can’t remember the amount of times I’ve seen him running back towards his own goal, he’s never probably played like that before.
‘I think with him, you speak about one vs one defending, he probably has to stay in his position and probably make it a little bit difficult, but it was weird how high he played, in certain moments he was playing inverted inside.’
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