Hammers are dead on their feet – the stats prove it

By Dave Langton

Tomas looks like a man in need of a rest and got one

West Ham couldn’t have looked more tired against Arsenal .

The Hammers lost the game, going down 2-1 in what looks like a severe blow to their top-six hopes. Brentford may help us tonight at Old Traford!

However. with Eintracht Frankfurt now on the horizon, the second leg in Germany looks an even taller order for the Irons than it did last week.

Against the Gunners, there simply wasn’t any urgency, because the players didn’t have the stamina to actually run.

The stats show the reality – we have won only two  of the last nine games. Sorry Moysie, that’s no coincidence as we reach the end of the season!

Jarrod Bowen looked sharp in the first half yesterday, as did Declan Rice, but it waned as the game went on and the Gunners kept the Irons at arm’s length throughout the second half.

In reality, the ball was just being passed in front of Mikel Arteta’s side, with no ability to  penetrate their backline.

Mikey Antonio came on in the second half and  looked more tired than some of the lads who started the game.

There isn’t the squad depth available to David Moyes to actually tinker and freshen things up and we have to look at the January transfer window as the root cause.

There was an option for Moyes to sign a player or two, just to reinvigorate the group, but he sat on his hands, and we’ve been left with a group of players who can barely move, let alone win football matches.

Nobody was expecting £100 million or more to be spent but a couple of loans to reinforce the squad?

We are climbing a major  against Frankfurt, especially after home advantage was essentially squandered in the first leg last week.

It’s not impossible, but we can’t help but feel a bit downbeat about our chances. It needn’t have been like this.