A game to show Pellegrini is right man for the Irons

By CandH blogger Allen Cummings

An interesting, and contrasting, 90 minutes of football lies ahead on Saturday afternoon when Chris Wilder’s Sheffield United team roll into town.

With two defeats in our last two games, our fortunes need to change, and quick. After a promising start to the campaign, with high hopes for the season ahead, questions are now being asked in some quarters about Manuel Pellegrini’s team and his tactics.

Doubts about the effectiveness of the manager’s footballing philosophy and preferred style of play are being raised. Are the players too lightweight? Is the football too fancy? Is substance being sacrificed for style? Do we want football the Pellegrini way – or do we want different?

We’re proud of what we call football played the West Ham Way but in a results business  would we be prepared to compromise? As we will see at the weekend Wilder’s Sheffield United team offer a different option.

They play in a certain way, which over the three years of his tenure, has proved very effective with promotion from League One in his first season, followed up with promotion to the Premier League last season.

It is a record difficult to argue with and and no doubt the Sheffield faithful are delighted with what they are seeing and achieving. But eight goals for and seven against seems to suggest the Blades are  efficient rather than exciting.

In his Thursday presser Pellegrini described the Blades style of play as “absolutely English football, strong players who work a lot over 90 minutes” adding “they’ve a difficult style – direct football…”

On Monday they conceded almost 70% of possession to Arsenal – but ended the game 1-0 winners. Would we be prepared to accept a similar brand of football at the London Stadium?

We have been down that road before. The Allardyce years brought us the desired promotion but not a lot more. David Moyes dragged us out of what was looking like a very big hole. But his was a style of football that didn’t really find favour with many of West Ham supporters, and eventually it was decided we could do without it.

That made way for the Pellegrini way, a more adventurous approach, with more creative players but with its own pitfalls – which is where we are now.

On Saturday I’m hoping our style triumphs over their style. That our players can find that hunger, drive and desire, allied to the ability we already know they possess, and prove that Manuel really is the man for us!