A good day at the office !
Who would have thought it?
The mighty Irons are sitting at the top of the table, our Kryptonite bogey team Brighton now a thing of the past and fair play to our Supremo, who orchestrated a wonderful tactical victory.
It just shows that his old fashioned pragmatism can work sometimes, particularly against the funky counter-press tactics that has made Roberto De Zerbi such a darling of the football intellectuals.
I could not help smiling when I heard the chants of “Are you watching, Declan Rice?” as James Ward-Prowse, opened the scoring.
Rice’s replacement in defensive midfield, Edson Álvarez, was another who had a great game. Brighton unsurprisingly had the lion’s share of possession but had no answer to the quality of West Ham’s finishing on the counter, though Alphonse Areola also produced a series of excellent late saves.
Lucas Paquetá, who would have joined Rice if other matters had not intervened played the role of librettist, and Jarrod Bowen and the mighty Michail Antonio, the other scorers, showed the ruthlessness in attack that the Seagulls could not live with.
What makes the victory more appealing is that we did it with only 22% of possession. But then again this could be possibly a cause for concern against teams that have the ability to snuff out our counter attacking options.
Don’t forget last season we got caught between trying to evolve into a more possession based style and the direct counter attacking style that got us into the top 7 the previous season , which did not work and contributed to our resultant domestic struggles.
Look, It’s only three games, no one is getting carried away, but 7pts is probably 6 more than most of us expected given the shenanigans of the post season. But for a team missing its £105m heartbeat, we certainly look like we’ve adjusted and moved on quite happily.
What with the Europa League draw to come. Things are definitely looking up…..
COYI!!
Chatting with an old Hammer yesterday, these were my transfer thoughts yesterday for the last week….
As for signings, would love it if we get Kudus
Be great to get a Left Back too, either get Maatsen from Chelsea (unlikely) or Kostic from Juventus (possible)
Keep Fornals and Kehrer
Possibly Ekitike from PSG and sell Ings (and loan Mubama so he gets some games), with Jarrod becoming another centre forward
And maybe a couple of youngsters to boost the squad (and sell Ben Johnson if he won’t sign another contract–would rather keep Ben)
Not much for the last week
A very good day in the office. A terrific result and in a way you dont mind setting up defensively like this against the top teams. But 23% possession is awful to watch so lets hope Moyes gets the balance right. We need to improve this against teams we should be beating and play much more with the ball. The big learnings from yesterday were we need competition at lb, its either alvarez or soucek in midfield not both, need to find a olace for Fornals in this team as he makes us play and we need cover for Antonio.