El Hadji Malick Diouf has praised the impact Axel Disasi has made since joining West Ham, claiming it’s ‘crazy’ that the defender had not been playing often for Chelsea.
Disasi arrived at Chelsea with weighty expectations on his shoulders following a high-profile £38million transfer move from Monaco back in 2023.
However the 27-year-old centre-back struggled to live as much as that hefty price tag across a mixed debut season at Stamford Bridge and was sent on loan to Aston Villa midway through the 2024/25 campaign.
After returning to Chelsea, Disasi was effectively frozen out of the first-team squad and due to this fact didn’t make a single appearance in the primary half of the season before joining West Ham on loan last month.
The France international has hit the bottom running with a string of impressive displays at the center of Nuno Espirito Santo’s defence, though, losing just certainly one of his opening six matches for the club.
He’ll little question be eager to proceed in the identical vein if called upon when the Hammers do battle with Brentford for a spot within the FA Cup quarter-finals on Monday evening.
Having lined up alongside Disasi in all five of his first league appearances for West Ham, Irons left-back Diouf told the club’s official website: ‘The guy just isn’t a small player!
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‘He played for Chelsea, so he knows the league.
‘It was crazy he stayed for such a protracted time and he didn’t play, but when he got here here, he showed that he’s a machine!
‘I’m really completely happy for him. He’s a superb defender and I feel he helped us quite a bit.’
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The previous Monaco and Reims defender still has three-and-a-half years remaining on his current contract with Chelsea.
Whether or not West Ham explore a everlasting deal for Disasi will likely rely on their success – or otherwise – in staving off relegation into the Championship at the tip of the season.
Serious questions were being asked of Espirito Santo’s position as West Ham went on a miserable run of ten winless games between November and early January.
Nevertheless, the Hammers’ upturn in form because the turn of the yr has given the club fresh hope of survival within the Premier League after what had been a wretched winter period.
A complete of 4 league victories in 2026 means the Irons now sit level on points with Espirito Santo’s former club Nottingham Forest within the table – and a surprise win of their next clash with Manchester City could see them rise to fifteenth.
After his side’s most up-to-date triumph away to Fulham, Espirito Santo insisted he and the squad remained hopeful of preserving their Premier League status for an additional season.
‘It’s a special night because we did a superb game in a tricky, tough stadium against a superb team, with a superb manager, incredible players,’ Espirito Santo told reporters shortly after the ultimate whistle at Craven Cottage.
‘We know the way hard it’s to come back here and to attain a result. That’s what pleases us probably the most.
‘We don’t measure belief, we at all times have belief, we at all times have hope, what we’d like is improvement.
‘Today was an enormous, big day for us, however the situation never modified. Nothing has modified. It required quite a bit more from all of us.’
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