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A big win but let’s not kid ourselves all is well

I flatly refuse to kid myself over the Southampton win!

Relieved, yes pleased, yes! But when you find yourself holding your breath and praying for the final whistle you know there’s something still very wrong against a team who in reality had little to offer until the last half an hour.

And that is as familiar a story as you can get given the events of last Monday night when ArsenalĀ  had individual players who could hurt us. Southampton didn’t.

There was much to admire from the Irons as they took a firm grip on the game particularly in the first 45 minutes but with the arrivals of Yarmolenko and Sanchez the wheels could so easily have fallen off.

Ok Fab may well be back for Palace and Lanzini is apparently not too far behind him and despite his lack of real form he is a player who can make things happen at his best.

This is a team which still has problems and doubts about the manager’s abilities to sort things simply won’t go away. There’s room for massive improvement and if that doesn’t happen he is in big trouble.

One things is for absolute certain. If he decides to play that sad one up system again we have real problems and how significant is it that Antonio is a player who has never been a Pellegrini favourite.

Yes, thank heavens for the win but the worries still linger.

 

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

One comment on “A big win but let’s not kid ourselves all is well

  1. Pretty much agree.
    During the last period that Lanzini did play, he was severely slated for all sorts.
    So, for the club’s and certainly the player’s benefit, he should not be re-introduced until actually match fit. Unless his playing will miraculously boost certain of the others’ performance by at least 10-15%, there are other outlets for a player to become match fit.
    At his best, yes, he is most certainly an asset. What we saw recently was that he can be as much a liability as Anderson, et al. Especially when in the same side AS Anderson.

    Which leads me to the point that our ‘hirers’ do not generally have enough of a handle on where they are hiring players FROM; also, WHY they are actually available. “Rejects”, “Troublemakers”, “Sick-notes”, “Poor temperament”, “Way past their best”……..but, most, good(-ish) AT their best.

    As with most of our recent opposition, these clubs seem to “see us coming”……

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