If you’d have been watching the highlights, instead of being live at the game or on TV for West Ham’s victory against Crystal Palace you might have been forgiven for failing to appreciate a subtle difference between this and previous performances. The ‘injury time’ stress of half expecting the opposition to score against us in the closing minutes and get back into the game was, eerily, absent.
Even when Palace hit the woodwork late on, there was virtually no expectation, however much they huffed and puffed, that they were going to get back in the game.
Well I remember – many years ago – Alan Pardew’s defensive substitutions failing almost weekly as The Hammers’ tried in vain to hang on to a win: Extra defender Christian Dailly coming on for a forward always had my stress level leaping as we seemingly invited opponents onto us for the last ten minutes with the inevitable equaliser and sometimes second goal coming as a result.
Moyes increased Hammers’ fans stress levels and invited other sides to attack us by withdrawing our -often sole – attacker in the same way: Throwing on another defender usually resulted in last-ditch defensive chaos setting in.
The strength of the West Ham United 2024 squad is evidenced by the defensive changes which Julen Lopetegui made to shore up the team, shut the door and hold on to a two goal advantage. Being able to call upon Jean Clair Todibo and Aaron Cresswell to bolster the back line and Edson Alvarez to add bite in the midfield shows how far this team has developed.
Even when playing very deep – at one stage there was a ‘back seven’ on the 18-yard line during the last few minutes – it seemed there was just no way through for Palace and the experience and maturity of the Hammers’ performance in the last quarter bodes well for the season: No all – out ‘backs to the wall’ defending this time out, confidence and professionalism reigned -mostly – supreme.
The transition from shaky, nervy last minutes towards a more polished defensive outfit is well underway.
Yeah I think maybe you could be right there….the quality we have now …in depth too ..it will definitely change us …just want to see a couple more games and see how we hold up against city…but I have to agree at this point
C’mon Martin we have only played two games. It’s much to early to jump to these conclusions.
You’re having a laugh. The last 10 minutes were exactly the same with West Ham sitting back and all of us biting our finger nails.