Who better than West Ham’s former boss David Moyes to pass judgement on Nuno Espirito Santo’s immediate impact on a failing Hammers side who fought back from a goal down for the first time this season to salvage a point at the Hill Dickinson stadium.
For large parts of the second half, West Ham looked like they were going to make the Toffees pay for not scoring again whist they in turn were on top: West Ham could have easily been a couple down at the break but fought through.
As Moyes noticed, there’s clearly a new influence at work on West Ham’s attacking style. As londownworld.com reports in their article:
‘Pickford and Moyes agree on what West Ham are already doing better’
Moyes highlighted the style of play of what he already considers a worthy opponent: “The one thing we mustn’t forget is what a good team West Ham have got…for long periods, we looked like we could get the second goal, especially at the start of the second half. But I think they grew in confidence. They started to get one or two counter-attacks and in the end, it cost us.”
As Everton’s England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford agreed, the attacking style-shift is what cost Everton:”They probably counter-attacked us better in the second half – something their new manager does well as he proved at Nottingham Forest last season.”
Must have been quite a training session at the weekend, to start the counter-attacking style shift. It will be interesting to see how the Irons prepare for Arsenal – hopefully Espírito Santo can have as much impact on his team’s shocking defence of crosses and set pieces.
Agree with all the positive things here. It’s hard to watch Mavropanos make such a pathetic effort to defend against Keane scoring their first goal and think that it is a training and tactics issue. Why is he so far away from him and jumping as if he’s going to head it?
But anyway let’s concentrate on the positives.