West Ham United 1 Aston Villa 2
At the start of last season, Aston Villa got a 5-1 spanking on their opening day fixture. And we know how their season ended. So, on the face of it, a 1-2 defeat with four Premier League player debuts, against a Champions League side, is not a disaster. Especially after a pretty woeful first thirty minutes when really we should have been three or four goals down. Antonio’s failure to follow Onana at a corner led to a simple first goal and Soucek’s failure to convert the last minute chance cost us a draw. Disappointing but no more than that.
Lopetegui’s challenges are many. The principal one is Midfield. Soucek playing centrally in midfield means that the talented trio of Bowen Kudus and Summerville can’t start in the same side together and I’d argue that if we are to play possession based football, Soucek is not the answer.
Previous Lopetegui sides would stop teams playing through the middle and force them down the wings. West Ham were overrun several times in the first half, straight through the middle, Rodriguez looking like he was running in treacle. Good in possession but s-l-o-w Bringing Ward-Prowse on for the latter stages only underlined the problem: The ease with which our midfield was sliced open would have me on the phone to both Alvarez’ doctor and Carlos Soler’s agents by 9pm tonight.
Until we sort out this midfield we will face the same problems as last year. Soucek should have been off at half time with Kudus coming into the centre (switching with Bowen as they do) and Summerville on the left. Please, Julen, next week. Not next month.
Paqueta was in his ‘bad’ mood today, with little of quality and lots of poor challenges and minor fouls. He does have games like that but next week he’ll probably be the match winner again.
Defensively we have a host of players ready to bolster the back line. Ironically Mavropanos did ok, Kilman grows a bit better each time I see him and Wan Bissaka and Todibo will tighten us up once they’re fully integrated. So, no worries at the back, we will get better.
And Summerville has the makings of a really exciting player to watch, being genuinely able to waltz past defenders. His place in the starting line up can’t come soon enough for me. Fullkrug will get into the right positions – we will score goals. Shame the chances fell to an out-of -form Soucek (who did manage to fall over and win us a penalty) but I saw enough to believe we can make significant progress in the next few weeks. So, don’t panic. Sort out the midfield, please Julen, and it’ll all be fine by Christmas.
West Ham did not control the midfield, and few clean balls -if any- were fed to the attackers, Antonio and later Fullkrug and Ings. Villa seemed to be in control -they had several opportunities to increase their 1-0 lead- until West Ham got 1-1 through a penalty. The 2-1 by Duran makes you wonder if the smart thing to do wouldn’t have been to pay the extra £5 million and get him (caveat: is he injury prone?). The good news is that there is room (and players) for improvement. Substitutions were a bit too late.
We all want instant success. After all the transfers and expectation here we are again. Losing at home as we did so many times under Moyes last year. Players coming out saying we can take positives from this defeat. B ******ks!! Rubbish performance. I’m not interested in whether players need to bed and in get used to the new managers system. All garbage. Professional highly paid footballers. Show some passion and pride. Just not good enough and already playing catch up.
Rodriguez played his whole career in LA Liga, I hope he can catch up to premier pace.
A disappointing performance and result, with a few positives, against a top four(Champions league) team who looked ready to start the season.
Lets just see where we’re at come New Year, before we shoot them all?
Sorry folks, extremely bad team selection and the usual bad performances by the Moyes brigade cost us today. I was typing a long list of reasons, when the message crashed. So then, enough said.
Hope the new head coach has learned His lesson, and immediately fix his mistake and our problem by getting rid of these overpaid loafers, and play the new players.
Hammers supporters have again been let down badly today, and certainly deserve better from this team.
Sorry just pi@@@@of already ..I’m abaddon loser….but spending all thst money and with the players we got ..if we want to be going places we got to be winning these games…..pi@@@@@ right of ….bad first 11 imo …villa were sh@@@@ in pre season and they also have new players in the side ..so thsts not an excuse for me …AND AS PER USUAL WE LET A GOAL IN FIRST AND EARLY …SPOILED MY WEEKEND
To be honest all the money same performance early day yet.
Have to say some Villa fans thought it eas the 1980s on the way back to the station…OK with adults…not so sure with crying children.
Thought we had lost Moyes trait of conceding within first 5-10 minutes, obviously not.
Final subs should have come on earlier.
Suggestion is we should be able to crack it by Christmas, does JLo have that long?
As soon as I saw the team selection I groaned and knew we were in for a mauling! Emery must have been grinning too. Where is Alvarez when you need him, can he play? Sadly it was exactly the same team David Moyes would pick, and the inevitable dismal loss. I hope J-Lo learns fast, because, if he doesn’t, we are in the trenches with our tin hats on, and it’s going to be a long, tough season. Please Julien yes it’s going to take time, but the Moyes players have to go! They are simply not good enough. The Antonios, Souceks, Coufals. Put the new players in now, oh and we need a pacy left back, as well as a quick young centre forward, and bring the lad Soler in pronto! We can not afford Paqueta’s off-days.
Can all the “fans” with the above comments please get a life. This is our first game, new players were not ready and this is Lopetegui first opportunity to see the team in PL action. It will take many weeks for him to sort the team out and if you want instant success go write on other website, preferably not a Hammers one.
I know people over react, but we see this time and again, the pace gets people.
I wasn’t hating on J Lo, I love the new coach love what we are doing.
Sadly, I couldn’t see nichnof the new system and yes Rodriguez looked off.
Ha e to agree with you totally, I saw the team selection and my immediate thought was were @@@@ here. Next game has to be the following line up. Areola, palmeiri, todibo, kilman, awb, summerville, kudus paqueta, bowen, alvarezif fit and fulkrieg up front, i have always been a huge fan of Antonio, but his, a, spent force these days he should be kept on the bench as a last 20 mins impact sub, if alvarez if isn’t fit then give ings a, try up front with fulkrieg as he’s definitely better in a, two up front scenario. And had we got Duran we would have got a point today as no other villa player looked like scoring must have left their shooing boots at home, and as for us we just didn’t have any shooting boots at all.
Anytime Kudus is played on the left, West Ham loses. Play him on the right or in the center. Simple.
Utter rubbish they are proffessional footballers getting paid plenty of money because of their talent so it’s time they showed up and delivered, summerville was ready but on the bench awb played for manutd last week and todibo looked ready to me, they and fulkrieg should have been on from the start, Antonio was planning his next podcast and is almost certainly a, spent force and no longer capable of Premier league football, and what’s the point of spending 150 million on better players and not utilising them immediately, moyeie did that with kudus and we all know what we missed then. Your entitled to your opinion matey, but so are the rest of us, sadly I have to say yours is the wrong one on this occasion.
Good assessment. It’s always annoying to lose the first game of the season, particularly at home, and easy to over-react. The main problem was the midfield being cut open too easily and players backing-off where, in pre-season, they were challenging. Alvarez returning will make a massive difference and Rodriguez will adapt to the Premiership so they should form the “pivot” that Lopetegui likes and shield the defence. Surely Soucek and Antonio must be on their way as they offer so little now. Summerville’s cameo at the end was a joy, but Bowen’s going missing for the whole game was a surprise.
Bowen had been partying with dani dyer, normally he is on his game week in week out, unfortunately today he was a replica of his lady dire.
Been really excited for the start of this season, finally bit the bullet and got a paid subscription so I can watch whole games not just highlights (even went as far as getting up at a ridiculous hour to watch this game).
Disappointed in the result, but always thought that we won’t be seeing the best of them until Christmas time. Any earlier will be a bonus.
Still think we’ll be on for a European place come the end of the season.
COYI ⚒️⚒️⚒️
I thought Moyes had left? Basically, that was his team and it showed. I was excited and looking forward to seeing the new team, but for a brief moment as I looked at the players, I thought I was watching a clip from last season. Yes I know it was only the first game of the new season and it might take a couple of games for things to start to gel, but that excuse is only good for August. By January 1st, the most poorly played West Ham player will have been paid around £1M (Danny Ings – £2.4M) and I for one believe that if that is not enough incentive to listen and learn your craft and to put in as many hours as it takes to fine tune what you have allegedly been doing every day since the age of 8, then sod off and find some other way to take the p*** out of every normal working person that pays your wages. FYI, the average annual salary for full time employees in the UK is between £28,000 and £35,000 depending on your source. Most PL players make that in about 3 days.
“poorly paid”
Work in progress. I thought Paqueta was one of the weak links in midfield. He contributed very little and was carelessly dispossessed when he should have passed. He needs to be benched to get his head sorted out. Give him a mental reality check. I’m still cautiously optimistic that Lopetigui will turn this all around. Hopefully another midfield signing to strengthen up that area of the pitch and the return of Alvarez.
Agree with your summary. What we need above all in the last two weeks is some PACE! Too many are too slow. Antonio, Ings, Rodriguez, Coufal, Source. It will be the same next week against Palace with fast forwards running through our midfield.
Summerville, Todibo, Kilman, Kudus and Mac did a shift. Needs to get tighter and faster.
We don’t have a player named “Source”. I assume you mean Soucek?
We don’t have a player named “Mac”. I assume you mean Mav (Mavropanos)?
I agree with your general assessment though, @Vernish28.
Might go further and say that Summerville looked terrific and Kudus very worked hard. In a few weeks we could be pretty good when Lopetegui works out his best starting eleven.
Can’t undrestand why Bowen went MIA, hope it wasn’t the extra burden of captaincy already!
If he can’t see that Soucek is not good enough in or season then that is bad
Same tactics as Moyes
Yes, it seemed like Moyes was pulling the strings from afar! Or was he playing with a voodoo doll?
I reckon Moyes had plastic surgery and changed his name to lopetagui?
Oh dear, oh dear, what an embarrassment to our fan base this thread is. Thankfully ‘Graham’ found the time to comment, showing that there are some out there with some common sense and a modicum of football knowledge.
As for ‘Pongo’, I am almost lost for words. Suggesting that Todibo should have started because, based on a 5 minute cameo, he looked ready to you, is as worrying as it is funny. You clearly don’t have a clue as to the fitness or readiness of any of the squad but fortunately the club have a super qualified medical and sports science team that do. Bowen played no minutes in the latter part of the Euros and has virtually no pre-season but in your world he is worthy of criticism, as is Lopetegui for taking him off after 70 minutes to protect him. You even resorted to derogatory remarks about his partner, the mother of his children – there is no place for that in a West Ham forum, in any world. You are clearly worthy of better things……… I suggest you try Tottenham’s forum, The Fighting Cock (?).
What is it with West Ham managers and Soucek?? They just won’t drop him. maybe he’s such a nice guy that they can’t do it? But he needs to be sold. Its theWest Ham old guard that are confusing the manager.I thought he would be more ruthless.
Amazing, isn’t it? David Moyes with 1000+ games experience had Soucek as one of the first names on the team sheet, the Czech Republic has made him captain of their national team, he is regularly voted Footballer of the Year by Czech media and fans, and Julen Lopetegui, of Spain, Real Madrid and Sevilla fame, picks him for his first match in the Premier League. If only they had your knowledge and wisdom, eh Al?
Embarrassing.