Championship- newbies Lincoln City will play hosts tomorrow night as Nuno’s West Ham go to put the disappointing result from London Stadium last week behind them. Third place in this Championship league after eleven games is of course no disaster, but if nothing else, illustrates that placing the Hammers as overwhelming pre-season favourites to romp to automatic promotion was somewhat overzealous.
Every side has realised the statistics that show West Ham – attacking wise – are a fearsome unit with more goals in the league than anyone else and an XG (expected goals per game) of 2.49, compared with tomorrow’s opponents Lincoln whose expected goals number is considerably less, down at 1.55.
However, as Lincoln fan site staceywest.net highlights, the defensive statistic that Nuno’s Hammers carry with them offers huge hope for any opponent:
“One of the more interesting comparisons is at the other end of the pitch. Despite our latest result, we’re (Lincoln) conceding slightly fewer goals per match than West Ham, at 1.22 against 1.33, and our expected goals conceded figure is lower as well, at 1.39 against 1.66”
Too many goals conceded gives West Ham a worse ‘expected’ figure than tomorrows opponents
“Their away results reinforce that. They’ve drawn at Burnley, Watford and Millwall, with their only away victory coming at Bolton, and have conceded in all four matches, shipping seven goals in total. They remain unbeaten on the road, but three of those four opponents have taken a point.“
It doesn’t take much to work out that West Ham’s achilles heel, pinpointed by a fan site of our next opponent, will, at this rate, condemn the club to the play off positions at best if not fixedt.
Too many draws will see the top teams leave us behind unless Nuno finds a way to shut teams out – or simply overwhelm them with more goals.
Neither tactic looked in evidence last Friday as the tippy-tappy-timid first half showed the Irons conceding – again – and struggling to impose themselves.
However. Tomorrow is a new day. Hopefully, back to winning ways while the gap between Nuno’s side and the league leaders hasn’t grown too great.
Lincoln will come out like dervishes to exploit our weak starts and will mix it which we will only cope with by playing characters like Pablo and Kante from the start sub them off later.
We must start higher tempo and we need grit at the start too, match that and our quality should tell in the long run, don’t match it and it’s playing catch up.
We have the players to sort out the problem. Nuno needs to think back to 12 months ago to start off with . We were virtually relegated by Xmas because of the terrible defensive selections made . Kilman was and still is a non league player at best and destroys those around him and cannot defend. He should not still be at the club . We have Geombeckis ? who has showed he is ready for a run in the team and Murato who is a centre back . We also have Alvarez and Maggassa who have both played in that position if Nuno stops sulking .
At full back Scarles has had loads of chances and just is not good enough but we do have the new guy and Mayers. On the other flank Walker – Peters is past his sell by date but Veltman is ready and waiting and looking like a proper defender.
All in all it is not a massive problem of not having the players. It is the awful defensive selections made by an awful petulant manager who does not learn from his many mistakes and is too stubborn to admit he made them .