David Moyes has blamed terrible defending for West Ham’s defeat against Everton at the London Stadium on Sunday adding it was a game of very few chances.
The manager told reporters post-match that the Hammers defining was awful for the goal saying it was far too easy to score against us.
The gaffer said the team have done well but to really compete you have to be right on it all the time and added that West Ham just switched off for a second for the Everton goal.
Although he didn’t name individuals Craig Dawson seemed to be caught out by Dominic Calvert-Lewin on 24 minutes and his strike turned out to be the single goal that separated the two sides.
Some commentators suggested Lukasz Fabianksi could have done better to stop the low shot but seems a bit harsh on the West Ham keeper.
As with all Premier League games they are often decided by very fine margins.
Well David, you’re the guy who picked Dawson ahead of Ogbonna. Sadly Dawson is now showing the kind of form that tells us why he’s never played for a top club. (Apart from us). He’s bang average at best. He’s costing us points every game.
Dawson has been great this season. Ok, he was at fault yesterday and didn’t have a great game against Newcastle. At £2m, he’s been brilliant value for money. Let’s not do the usual short-sighted, very ‘West Ham’ thing of knocking him for a couple of below average performances. He’s been immense in both boxes in most games this season. The point about him not having played in a top six team is one that could be aimed at most of the current West Ham squad. So, why mention it? In fact, it could be aimed at most players in the Premier League. As mentioned, the margin between winning and losing is very fine in most Premier League games. Yesterday was no different. The result was disappointing, but it could easily have gone the other way.
It was one occasion in this match and the sending off but that he has proved his worth goes without saying. We wouldn’t be where are if he hadn’t been brought in. Maybe Ogbonna still isn’t match fit?
It was too easy that goal but it was one mistake when for the rest of the game we kept them quiet, its rare that you concede from a single mistake but that’s the PL, shows the value of Ogbonna and Rice and the need for investment. We had two chances where we nearly scored against a packed well organised defence, imho 4 the teams now in the top 5 plus Spurs and Arsenal should get a 20 point penalty, what they did I believe is upset the focus of all other clubs while increasing their own, not too mention bringing the game into disrepute, no word from the PL or FIFA or UEFA, so they are going to upset everything cause massive unrest and get away Scot free it seems to continue on the gravy train while all the other clubs suffer and at some point re-introduce another breakaway cash grabbing exercise.
Apart from Dawson’s lack of pace being exposed and Fab perhaps being able to do better, the bog cpntribution to the goal was Ben Godfrey being able to slot the through ball from the half way line – I dont think that would have happened if Decan Rice had been playing – and ceratinly there were no such balls possible for us with Everton’s compact defence with teh two banks of four
We still need to improve – Benrahma’s miss and to a lesser extent Bowen’s follow-up to Coufal were made much more obvious by the fact that we created so few chances – which was also the case against Chelsea a couple of matches back
So we are a work in progress – I am sure that Moyes is aware of that and hopefully he will address that during the next transfer window
As was pointed out by the commentators yesterday Everton have the second best away record in the PL – so we should not feel too down about yesterday’s match (our performance was much better than Leicester’s for example)
COYI
You don’t win any match without scoring. Can’t score if you don’t get a shot on net. Pickford could have been snoozing in the dressing room for all the saves he made.
Should not be playing a high line. Dawson too slow, Diop same but different.