Manuel Pellegrini has faced some highly predictable questioning over his decision to adopt a high line in the first game of the season.
One noticeable high profile critic is of course Mark Lawrenson who, in his latest BBC website deliberations, reckoned he should have adopted a 4-5-1 formation and sat deep at Liverpool.
In reality of course he was wrong because working on the maxim that “you start the way you intend to go on” the Hammers boss could hardly have got it more right.
Given the odds against us getting anything from the game were huge there could hardly be any harm in attempting to have a go on the “nothing ventured nothing gained” philosophy.
There have been some who reckon the system should be abandoned forthwith which would presumably mean we can do without this particular type of manager.
Pellegrini has played this way all his life and during his presser commented: “To try to recover the ball, to press high, to have good possession. The way you play is the way you work during the week.
“I think it will be fast to create this mentality.”
“It is not difficult because we work every day of the week to have this mentality.”
I have absolutely no doubt he will adopt the same approach tomorrow against Bournemouth which will be a much better time to make a judgement.
I still maintain a lot of faith in this man and if he says the squad he’s assembled can adjust quickly, then I’m ready to believe him and continue to look forward to a West Ham brand of football on which I grew up.
Maybe the armchair pundits would be better off watching and waiting as our highest paid manager of all time gets to grips with the job.
COYI
If you are adopting a new style of play or in real life changing your behaviour you should expect to make plenty of mistakes in the early days, it is not natural for the players and there will be an adjustment phase, knee jerk reactions are a waste of time, Pellegrini has implemented this style at numerous clubs and the players know that it works. I thought that we played a brave game even when we were on the wrong side of it, this is no different to Tottenham in the early days under Poch and City under Pep, both teams made huge mistakes and Tottenham especially looked leggy for the first 4 months late in games just as we did.
Like pellegrini explained in his previous presser, the problem wasn’t with the high line. The problem was with the wings. Whether the goal hangers in the middle are offside or not those goals don’t get scored if the wingbacks stop the crosses coming in from the wings.