Evening Standard reporter Ken Dyer has been covering West Ham United over land and sea for more than 40 years and gives his views on Dimitri Payet being ruled out for three months with an ankle injury and what it means for the rest of the season....
It is obviously a massive blow for Dimitri and everyone at the Club that he is going to be missing for the next few months.
Dimitri has been one of the star performers this season and you could argue one of the signings of the summer.
He has been one of the major influences on our attack and his play has been tremendous up until now. It must be a real body blow for Slaven and his coaching staff.
Under the current climate it was definitely a red card and I was surprised that he was allowed to stay on the pitch.
You only have to compare that incident with when James Collins got sent off against Watford and the challenge by McCarthy seemed a lot worse with his scissor kick.
Dimitri tried to run the injury off towards the end of the first half and then came back out for the start of the second half.
He obviously wanted to give it a go, but the injury turned out to be much more significant than anyone could have imagined at the time.
But it now gives an opportunity for someone else to show they should be in the first-team and maybe Slaven will have to tweak the system a little bit.
If we would have suffered an injury like this last season, we would have been severely affected and scrapping around to find an alternative.
But this is a much better squad now and we are able to cope better. We have got one or two players coming back from injury and it will be a massive boost to see Alex Song back in action.
He has a lot of quality and was instrumental for the Club in the first half of last season. He has got everything in his game.
He has played at the highest level for Barcelona and Arsenal and if he can come back like last season, we have got a real player on our hands.
It is great to see Andy Carroll back in action and it will also be nice to see Diafra Sakho back in the side. He is a different type of player to Andy.
He is probably one of the hardest working strikers in the Premier League and always gives everything for the team. He is very important to the way Slaven wants to play.
The manager certainly got the reaction from the players he was looking for during the 1-1 draw with Everton last weekend.
They have been a real bogey side for us over recents years and it shows how far we have come that we are disappointed to only come away with a point.
We now switch our attentions to a big London derby against Tottenham and this is a big game for West Ham fans.
We have done quite well against them in the last couple of years and Slaven has got some thinking to do with the team selection.
People are away on international duty this week, but I am sure when they all return next week, Slaven will have a system and a plan in place to get the best possible result at White Hart Lane.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of West Ham United