Ipswich Town’s boss was quick to label West Ham United as a long ball team on Saturday, in an attempt to find an excuse for his teams ‘capitulation in their four-one defeat at London Stadium, with goals from Antonio, Bowen, Kudus and Paqueta sealing the Tractor Boys fate. In fact, his exact words to the BBC were:
“Tactically, West Ham played very differently to any team we’ve played this season. They were very direct which is what we struggled with. Michail Antonio did a fantastic job in bringing in people like Tomas Soucek.”
“In the first 60 minutes it was that direct play we didn’t deal with.”
“They didn’t have to work too hard for their goals. We conceded some poor goals at poor times, that changed the momentum.”
The simple facts are that three of the four goals West Ham created came from The Irons tackling and winning the ball back from Ipswich inside their own half. The so-called high-press which was in evidence throughout the game and one which Ipswich couldn’t live with.
So McKenna can burble on about direct play – whatever that is – to excuse his teams’ turnover of possession.
The simple fact from the barest look at the stats was that West Ham did exactly what Lopetegui kept demanding in the Thursday training video from the club’s YouTube channel which we discussed in Saturday morning’s post: “Hammers’ Pressing Priorities‘: Both Lopetegui and Senior Coach are heard repeatedly demanding that Hammers players keep “forcing the mistake” .
Exactly what they did. And scored three times. So no more rubbish about direct or long ball style undoing Ipswich.
Agree with the sentiments and it’s up to the team to continue to force the mistake out of teams in all positions of the league. We are playing less games than our competitors for higher league positions so we better use that to our advantage with high energy pressing.
Beating one of the relegation favorites is one thing , but a little more difficult with the top teams . At least we can see Lopetegui’s tactics now , they’ll work against untalented teams but won’t get Westham into Europe .
Martin, I didn’t see one reference to “long-ball football” in Kieran McKenna’s comments. He said we were direct twice (which we were… very). I think we surprised him with that direct play compared to how we have been playing—way below our potential and timid and scared (leading to looking like a team that had only just met). We all have our own perspectives, and the comments shown in your article may not have been all of what he said, with me taking them out of context, but to me, KM was giving us a tip of the hat to our direct play. If I hadn’t known better, I might have said your article was looking for sensation and trouble where there isn’t any.
We were direct a lot of the time with the long diagonals but also forced turn overs with our forwards effeftive at the high press. We also created a handful of chances by actually playing thru midfield although I feel that is something we still need to improve. The ability to stretch teams by high tempo passing. Against Chelsea, they were able to play thru our press far too easily many times whereas Ipswich werent as, imo, they played higher up to pitch trying to force us into errors. That suited us and allowed the balls over the top to our forwards who had space in front of them.
Im hoping Spurs come at us at home with their high line too although they will be better at it and we will have to defend well but could potentially get similar chances / space for our forwards.
Its when we face teams like Villa and Chelsea, who sit deeper and more compact and can counter very quickly that we may still gave problems because Lopetegui tactics leave acres of space in midfield if our high press is broken and ( again imo) we dont have midfielders with enough pace to recover especially if its Rodriguez as the single deep lying one.
Anyway, lets hope Lopetegui understands that he might need to change tactics, and personnel depending on the opposition, their set up and if we are home or away.
We shall see
That’s exactly how I saw the game which didn’t match his hapless excuse. Teams consistently at the top end of the league are able to mix their styles and tactics successfully. It takes a squad, coaching team and recruitment team to take every advantage and opportunity. I’m not saying that’s us but that has to be the aim. Job done against Ipswich but it’s got to be done consistently week in week out.