Despite the nineteenth spot ( luckily, the Hammers were spared the ignominy of ‘rock bottom’ for two weeks,) West Ham’s squad members appear to have been full of praise for their new head coach.
Well, they would, wouldn’t they. Nobody is saying the words …but clearly there is a squad buy-in to Espirito Santo’s plan, compared with the failed Potter Project; despite a two nil loss, there are lots of West Ham players filling lots of columns of news with ‘how impressed they’ve been with Nuno’ – type stories.
It isn’t all just a load of hot air for the media, either. The evidence was clear to see especially with Konstantinos Mavropanos transformed from an error strewn, clumsy centre back into a – more effective, committed defender who was suddenly winning aerial duels. Clearly it is too early to proclaim the ‘set piece crisis’ a thing of the past but the Hammers did manage to avoid conceding from corner kicks against the so-called ‘corner kings’.
Defender buys into Espírito Santo process
Speaking to whufc.com, Mavropanos made his opinion of the Hammers new coach quite clear:
“The manager is really straight with what he wants, and at half-time he was telling us to stick to our plan. I think we can all adapt to his philosophies quickly, and we’re only going to get better with time. Hopefully, we’re stronger in the next game, and we can start getting the results we want.”
Both centre backs have undergone considerable improvement in a week since Nuno took the helm. Now the international break allows the coach to try for real progress in attack as well as defence. Winnable games are coming thick and fast later in October so, having shored up the leaky defence, the Irons now have to find away of creating chances.
Not one attempt on Arsenal’s goal is a pretty grim record and not one the Hammers can tolerate in the games to come against Brentford, Newcastle, Leeds, Burnley and Bournemouth. At least with the new found structure in defence, the ‘cricket score’ capitulations are a thing of the past.
Maybe Mavropanos will get a call up to the national team sometime soon.
He has always had class. Niclas Fullkrug similarly. With team progress comes visibly better performances from our international stars. In turn this allows for gradual introduction of our young developers.
He does feature for Greece regularly!