Brentford’s season is at a pivotal stage as West Ham come to visit on Saturday. The Bees are in something of a dip, being winless in seven games ( a fact not lost on several Claret and Hugh readers) and have won just once since 21st February in the Premier League – a 4-3 victory against now relegated Burnley.
In their search for insight into what has caused West Ham’s late season rally, Brentford’s own web site has produced a report setting out what to expect when the Hammers arrive, quoting standard.co.uk journalist Sam Tabuteau’s insight into this West Ham line up.
Bucking the recent criticism of at least one of the Irons’ attacking duo, Tabuteau highlights the contributions of both Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe as being instrumental in West Ham’s turnaround in form since January, alongside more established names:
“The obvious ones are Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville. El Hadji Malick Diouf is another good player, but I do quite like the strike combination of Taty Castellanos and Pablo.
They are an interesting duo because they do not score a ton of goals, but you can tell they are working incredibly hard for the team and you can see the impact they have had.
Journalist Sam Tabuteau suggests the Irons’ turnaround in form since the duo arrived is not coincidental.
They have helped what was a really lifeless attack build more cohesion and give it a focal point, which Bowen and Summerville have been able to play off.
They came in in January and their additions have been really important for West Ham’s resurgence.”
Which is true enough and something often forgotten when simply looking at statistics – for Pablo at least the end product has been lacking, but quite possibly he has enabled the Hammers to defend better as a consequence of his endless pressing for the first hour of games.
Having been critical of Pablo in particular myself, it would seem only fair to present the other side of the argument: Whatever else, West Ham’s attack is certainly no longer ‘lifeless’.
In part, that is due to the pair’s endless appetite for running and pressing from the front – but also to the addition of attack minded Paco Jemez to the coaching staff – something else which has had a huge impact on the club’s results and points tally since January.
For the record, the Hammers’ expert journalist finished off his report with his game prediction for Brentford’s own web site:
“Brentford have struggled to take the onus of a really strong league position, so I am going to go with a 1-0 West Ham win here.
They do not tend to win pretty, but they have got so much riding on this.”
What about Wilson’s impact and Bowen’s assists they and disasi and Mavropanos in defense that’s whats improved west ham !!!
I still think Brentford are a good side I didn’t realise they were winless in 7 but I still think it may be a struggle on Saturday. Let’s just hope all our forwards click and we can get a result as it would be massive
Well done MT.
COYI
There’s a difference between being an attacking threat and being an attacking presence.
Pablo is a big attacking presence but no attacking threat at all.
Taty is also a big attacking presence and a limited attacking threat.
While they’re both rushing around being big attacking presences that’s fine as that’s competing, but as soon as the energy runs out they need to come off as they’re not adding anything. They need to be replaced like for like, not with extra defenders as that invites the opposition onto us,
Agreed JA,
I’d go as far as starting with Wilson and Traore, play counter attack for an hour, or so.
Then introduce T&P for the last third of the game reverting to a slightly higher press and push Tommy S further forward in key moments.
This is the game which is potentially season defining
make no mistake about it, absolutely massive!
If we win and N17 lose, it’ll be ” that’s all she wrote”
for that lot.