Nuno Espirito Santo’s West Ham starting eleven came in for a fair few raised eyebrows as he named three changes for the away fixture at Turf Moor: Alphonse Areola apparently suffering from a ‘knock’ that allowed Hermansen to make his first Premier League appearance since August.
In addition there was a starting debut for Axel Disasi, straight into the starting eleven despite no Premier League action since last April. Callum Wilson completed the changed line up as Nuno recognised Wilsons’ penchant for goals against Burnley and presumably moved to address the Hammers lace of pace late on by holding Pablo back until the latter stages when Wilson tired.
No early alarms and Nuno’s strategy looked solid as the Hammers again raced into a two goal lead with Fernandes looking supreme in midfield with an assist and some stellar tackling to break up Burnley forays. For the fifth game in a row, can you believe, West Ham scored within the first fifteen minutes.
Nuno gets the calls right in the second half
All eyes were on the manager’s strategy to safely shepherd the points into the bank – after recent second half capitulations. And indeed it was Burnley who piled on the pressure in the second half: Nuno responding and introduced Potts as a replacement for Callum Wilson on 55 minutes. Hopefully the better option than adding the third centre back as West Ham shifted to three in midfield.
Burnleys’ trio of changes went unanswered until Pablo and Scarles entered on ’75 in place of Taty and Diouf. Surprising to see Disasi likely to go the distance: So much for the ‘unfit’ stories. It seemed Nuno had reflected on the previous folly of adding a third centre back and going overly defensive. The addition of Potts added a huge layer of steel to West Ham’s midfield and Nuno deserves credit (finally) for getting it right.
And grabbing a first clean sheet in many, many months.
Summerville and Bowen left at 91′ for Traore and Kyle Walker Peters to shepherd the game out. Credit to Nuno, a solid 7/10 this week.
Can’t say that I agree with Nuno deserving credit for finally seeing the bleedin’ obvious in his many previous second half substitution follies. Better late than never I suppose. However I watched the second half fearing we would concede our lead yet again. We were abysmal in my opinion. We were defending deeper and kept giving the ball away, looking like a rabble on Hackney Marshes. How we managed to hold on is beyond me. But if we play like that against Michael Carrick’s newly renovated Manchester United then don’t expect them to look a gift horse in the mouth! Know what I mean?
I like what Nuno is doing. Bringing the squad age down, introducing youth and giving us a style of play.
If, and it’s still a big if, we can stay up, I feel confident for the future.
Definitely a better strategy, Wilson was quiet in this game but without his run Taty doesn’t have as easy an opportunity and Pablo was excellent bringing energy on in the second half and some physicality up front.
Diouf’ s cross for the goal was brilliant but again he was poor defensively and with better opposition we will get punished, he should be an impact sub we looked solid when Scarles came on and he got close to the crossers and prevented crosses coming in.
Disasi also seemed like he was all over the place, it worked today, need to see more of him to assess whether that is a good thing or not. Reminded me of a cab version of Emerson where he was often not where I would expect him to be eg wide left on the touch line further left than Diouf.
Would also give Nuno 7 out of 10, better strategy and hopefully even more improvements possible, tough one next with a very confident Utd team, lets hope we can do another great first half and go in ahead at half time and improve second half too COYI !!!
Burnley were poor and I was right to predict the clean sheet even if it was 2-0 and not the 1-0 I said.
The only important thing is the three points, we must get something against Man U now.
We are picking up points needs to continue.
I didn’t see much “cruising” after the second goal. I did see a lot of stray and aimless passing, less finesse and more panic. Good to see Disasi proving his critics wrong. Thankfully it was Burnley and obviously low on confidence in front of goal. A great result for West Ham but not a great final 60 minutes. They are going to have a fight on their hands on Tuesday to give Carrick his first defeat.
Much better performance all round! Both goals were brilliant! Shame we couldn’t have got a 3rd as we deserved it in that first half. And, it feels so nice to say this, we defended brilliantly today as well!
Looks like Nuno is learning. Is it to late?
Shame about 15pts lost from previous games.
Onwards and upwards hopefully.
Another 3 points but a shoddy 2nd half performance again. Only just kept a clean sheet.