15 Comments

Lack lustre Irons fail to excite

Lens 0 Irons 0

By Hughie Southon

West Ham struggled rather than battled their way to a goal-less draw rarely looking like a team ready to take on manchester City in the opening game Of the season.

It wasn’t until the last 16 minutes that the Irons looked anything like an attacking force and Jarrod Bowen was unlucky to hit the underside of the cross bar from a great piece of invention by Conor Coventry who appeared as a second half sub..

But by and large – although Lanzini made a difference when arriving in the second half –  we looked lethargic in attitude and ability for a game in which the French always looked the most likely to score.

We were without new signing Gianluca Scamacca who remained at Rush Green to work on his fitness while Mikey, Aaroon Cresswell are carrying minor knocks and Issa Diop is ill.

Angelo Ogbonna meanwhile is continuing his comeback from injury by playing for the under 21s at Dagenham and Redbridge.

Beyond a Benrahma shot comfortably held by keeper Samba and a Fornals free kick which came close to producing an own goal; there was little to excite Hammers fans in the first half.

The players went off at the interval looking unhappy with themselves for a 45 minutes which could have seen us well behind but for those two fine saves and some poor finishing from Lens.

The Irons were again very much second best in a first half of few chances -the best of which drew two fine saves from Lukasz Fabianski early on

The French outfit looked  sharp in comparison to the laboured Hammers whose pre-season continued to leave much to be desired.

Zouma had a poor afternoon – twice presenting chances to forward midfielders and predictanly Rice and Bowen were the best looking of the Hammers.

 

IRONS: Fabianski, Coufal, Zouma, Dawson, Johnson, Rice (c), Soucek, Benrahma, Fornals, Masuaku, Bowen
Subs: Areola  Coventry,  Lanzini, Vlasic, 

 

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

15 comments on “Lack lustre Irons fail to excite

  1. well, what a let down, was all geared up to see our new players, then nothing.
    very confusing, when we had 1 striker, we ran him into the ground, now we have 2 strikers, we dont play any of them, lol.
    only at west ham my friend, only at west ham.

  2. You wrote “It wasn’t until the last 16 minutes that the Irons looked anything like an attacking force”. Correct. This was exactly the time Benrahma and Masuaka were subsituted. They were both worse than ever, causing constant pressure on their own colleagues. Does Moyes really still believe that these two will ever imrove? Johnson on the right, Rice and Fornals made for a much improved defence. Coventry was like a breath of fresh air!

  3. Underwhelming….. switching to a 3-4-3 without a clear centre-forward didn’t seem to bear fruit.. playing Masuaku…. Benramha… lets hope Moyes recruitment brings some bodies with a future at West Ham…

  4. Lanzini, I feel, needs to be starting instead of Benrahma. And Coventry has earned his place in this squad.

    • Agreed, although I believe that he was probably protecting Lanzini for the start of the season, as he is a very important player for us. Hopefully, Coventry has now also sealed his place within this squad.
      I think that both Benrahma and Masuaku were given the opportunity to prove to the manager, that he is not wrong in his assessment of them.

  5. It wasn’t a fantastic watching experience, but the match wasn’t solely for our entertainment, as the team selection showed. For reason’s the manager and his staff understand and along with the players, we’re all behind the curve and will probably figure it out a little later on.
    90 more minutes in the legs and stuff to work on, during this week. Nothing to get too worried or excited about at this stage as far as I’m concerned.

  6. I feel todays performance showed that players like Johnson, Coventry, Downes, Benrahma and Vlasic aren’t premier level, Coufal was ok but we lacked cutting edge, we need 6 or more players that are better quality than what we have, middle of the park offensively not good enough Lanzini and the others were uncomposed uncreative. We need to deliver better quality replacements immediately, we will also probably loan out Vlasic, Coventry and maybe Benrahma, we should sell Lanzini he is not good enough either.

  7. From the report this was as lack lustre as the others, against Luton (!)we were slow and second best with appalling ball retention – sounds familiar. Glad to see Coventry get some minutes, but what DM needs to see about Masuaku heaven knows. It all sounds worryingly disjointed, and watching City on TV today……they will never give us the ball back except to kick off!!

  8. What an uninspiring pre-season.
    Defensively a little shaky and then find that we have lost our big defensive signing for a number of weeks, the big (only worthwhile?!j signing of last season is struggling presumably because of catgate.

    Attacking wise we have been poor at best but have hopefully signed a decent forward…..hopefully.

    In the middle, well average and lacking dynamism.

    I get the pre-season is about fitness but we do look lethargic. Our signings have yet to make an impact because we are too slow in getting players onboard and we only have 2x who presently will make a difference.

    I’m not writing our season off but equally fear a slow start and a struggle to scrape into top 10. Maybe a Conference League win 😉

  9. Come you Trons, as they say – or perhaps they don’t. If the headline has been corrected, this will mean nothing.😁

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