As West Ham start to chalk up clean sheets, the pressure on those outside the starting eleven – particularly in the defence – stars to grow.

With West Ham again keeping the ball out of their own net yesterday- especially against an eighth place Bournemouth side in the middle of a successful streak – it is going to get harder for benched players to break back into what is becoming a solid defensive side.

The old maxim of  ‘don’t change a winning side‘ probably applies just as well to ‘don’t change your defence when they’re keeping clean sheets.’

For Maximilian Kilman and Jean Clair Todibo just now the opportunities to return look likely to be limited to covering for injuries. Mavropanos and loanee Disasi were again awesome yesterday.

Another of the much improved quartet is El Hadji Malick Diouf who appears to have returned from the AFCON championships with increased self-belief and confidence, which in its turn doesn’t bode well for Ollie Scarles who at this rate, will find his first team opportunities limited.

Diouf has been awesome since AFCON

It had seemed  the case that Scarles was rated higher defensively, Diouf the better attacking player.