Many West Ham fans were happy to see the back of Mohamed Diame when he signed for Hull City – but after his fine start for Hull, was Diame’s disappointing time at West Ham solely down to being played out of position?

Mohamed was desperate to force a move away from West Ham to a bigger club seemingly ever since joining the East London side. However, in the end the only team that was willing to take Diame away from Upton Park was Hull City. Diame was far from a fan favourite at West Ham despite some tremendous performances. On his day, Diame was simply unstoppable – sadly these days were few and far between.

That being said, his performances towards the latter stage of his time with The Hammers were arguably down to him being played out of position by Sam Allardyce – or at least that is what the Senegalese international claimed just moments after shutting the The Boleyn Ground’s back door. There is no doubting that Big Sam was not willing to play Diame in his favoured central position, and that was certainly where Mohamed had most of his good performances for The Hammers.

He was largely used out wide during his final full season in London and that was mainly due to Big Sam not having the trust in ‘Momo’ to retain possession as well as other central midfielders would do. His best attribute is probably his dribbling, as when he’s motoring along he’s very difficult to stop. He’s similar to Yaya Toure in that regard except his shooting is a long way off ideal.

It was not surprising when Diame netted against his former club on his Hull City debut and it’s equally as unsurprising that the 27-year-old has managed to recoup his scoring touch at Hull. In his final season with West Ham he started 29 of the possible 38 Premier League games, and yet only managed to net 4 goals. I say ‘only’ because he has a high tendency to shot on sight and although most go high and wide, of course a few go in. It’s also ‘only’ 4 as he has already reached that tally and he’s only made 6 appearances for The Tigers. Quite an astounding start for the Senegal international.

Does that therefore prove Big Sam wrong? If perhaps The Hammers manager had chosen to play Diame in his favoured central role he may well have got more out of the player and bagged more goals for the club. That all sounds very plausible however West Ham fans will tell you, for every goal he scores he’s missed 10 good opportunities for the team.

‘Momo’ is not a bad player by any means but he can be very selfish. If his form for Hull is anything to go by, there’s no doubt that he would have scored more if he was giving a shot more centrally, however how many times he would have given the ball away and how many times he would have wasted a good opportunity is not so clear.

Whether his goalscoring would have outweighed the negatives of his play is unknown – but at the end of the day, Hull are happy to have him and West Ham are flying without him.

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