By CandH’s top blogger Allen Cummings
West Ham’s performance against Champions elect Manchester City on Saturday attracted universal praise – and rightly so!
David Moyes’ team came within a whisker of picking up a creditable point at the Etihad Stadium, a reward that would not have been out of place for the effort they put in on the day.
But that’s water under the bridge now, and top priority now for Moyes’ boys is the visit of Leeds United next Monday, which in its own way could be a pivotal game in our season and could provie us with a double over the Yorkshire outfit
Your last game counts for little if next time out you don’t perform. The performance against City was excellent – but fruitless in terms of points.
The points against Leeds, first and foremost, will be paramount next Monday – however they come!
By the time we play Marcelo Bielsa’s side, the Hammers could find themselves a good few places off the lofty fourth spot we currently occupy in the Premier League.
That’s because several of our closest rivals have midweek games to play – and possibly benefit from – and will also have played their weekend matches before we take to the London Stadium pitch.
It’s just the way the fixtures have fallen. Of course we will have benefitted from a nine day break – virtually unheard of in these hectic times – but the downside might be our enforced inactivity could produce the psychological disadvantage of seeing ourselves suddenly elbowed out of those coveted European places.
It’s nothing three valuable points won’t go towards re-addressing though, by 10pm next Monday evening.
Bielsa’s Leeds are a very different proposition to Pep Guardiola’s City though. They will be far more direct and in our faces.
Bielsa’s is something of a pin-up with the football pundits this season – a tactical genius some suggest. But from what I’ve seen it’s more about energy, work rate and enthusiasm, rather than tactics, that’s made them such an entertaining watch.
They score goals regularly – but they also concede them at a hefty rate. Only West Bromwich Albion with 55 goals against, have conceded more than Leeds’ 44 goals this season.
Michail Antonio, with a goal in each of his comeback games, will no doubt believe he has an opportunity to continue that good form. It’s likely that Moyes will revert to a back four instead of a five for this one, with more emphasis on exploiting the Yorkshire side’s vulnerability at the back. The 2-1 victory we picked up at Elland Road earlier in the season (without Micky), was a thoroughly professional display, and saw possibly Said Benrahma’s best performance so far. It could be our Algerian international will feature prominently again in a more attack-minded line-up.
It would make for great TV to go head-to-head with Leeds and put on a show for the cameras. But David Moyes will know his first duty is to secure the points, banish last weekend’s reverse to the history books, and get the West Ham bandwagon rolling again!
