“We just need to cut out the self harm stuff.”
That was the particularly memorable verdict from West Ham supporter John Ayris following Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Southampton, and it probably sums up the biggest frustration surrounding Nuno Espírito Santo’s team at the moment.
John was responding beneath Martin’s player ratings, where the Hammers’ dreadful opening again dominated the discussion. West Ham were two goals down inside 11 minutes and, despite eventually producing 28 attempts, spent virtually the entire afternoon trying to repair damage they had inflicted upon themselves.
Nuno Knows West Ham Have A Problem
The worrying thing is that Nuno undoubtedly knows West Ham are making life more difficult with these slow starts. He repeatedly alludes to the issue, but there is a significant difference between recognising a problem and possessing the ability to fix it.
Whatever Nuno is currently trying clearly isn’t working, and I suspect he may have to do something drastic to break the nasty habbit. As I wrote immediately after the game, West Ham’s slow-start problem finally came home to roost against Southampton after weeks of getting away with it.
Los Angeles Irons went even further, writing: “I believe we have the best squad in the league. The problem has to be the manager. What would happen at other clubs if their team consistently doesn’t show up for half a game?”
I probably agree West Ham have the best squad in the second flight. Nuno certainly has more than enough talent at his disposal, yet we remain incredibly slow and I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re amongst the slowest teams in the division.
That’s going to remain a problem however strong the squad is, particularly when we’re not clinical enough to convert the huge number of chances we create.
Mukasa and Engels might have benefitted from the experience of Edson Alvarez
Southampton Exposed The Midfield Gamble
Trevor from Billericay made a similar point, arguing that with the squad available, “starting on the front foot with attacking intent should not be such an insolvable issue.”
George Howell was more specific, describing the decision to start without a recognised holding midfielder as “suicidal.”
For me, Southampton was probably the clearest example yet of the problem caused by not having a specialist defensive midfielder in there.
Arne Engels seemed to spend much of the game firefighting, while I actually thought Divin Mukasa was our best creative outlet. It would have been nice for Mukasa to have some security behind him to allow him to concentrate on what he does best.
I’m sure the defence would have appreciated it too because Southampton appeared capable of cutting through West Ham whenever they attacked. Martin made the same observation in his morning blog, with the lack of protection in front of the back line impossible to ignore.
Not every supporter thought West Ham were dreadful. Harvey Fox pointed out that the Hammers could conceivably have scored six or seven given the chances created, while John himself felt we should have won because of how dominant we became.
That’s almost what makes the problem more frustrating.
West Ham have enough attacking quality to overpower most teams in this division. But continually handing opponents a head start is footballing self-harm of the entirely avoidable kind.
Nuno knows it.
Now he has to prove he knows how to stop it.
The words would have, could have and should have were words resonating all last season and now again here so what is the common denominator? NES! He brought us down to the Championship he might not get us out if something doesn’t change and soon.
This has gone on to long nuno cost us our premiersjip status by not playing the correct players players out of postion.etc etc no other club would put up with this he needs to go things only picked up when the temp recuritment side kick came in at the end of last season he had a lot of arguments over.selction with nuno not supprising he wanted to move on and now its happening all over again we will strugle to make the playoffs if he remains in charge he has no answers to what is going on even tho hes the cause.by not dropping players that are below par should we find ourselves in the championship next season it would be a total diaster that could take years to overcome we need a manager that knows what players to pick not afarid to drop a player regardless of status.one who knows how to attack and win games nuno is well past his sell by date the time is now or all will be lost.
Yet ironically it was us trying to start on the front foot that was to blame for the two early goals and with everyone pushed high up we simply left ourselves wide open at the back.
I agree I thought end of last season and all games including this season they look like a school team pick the players and send them out with no instructions.when you look at Southampton yesterday they were organised in there positions and we are not we need a good coach to sort them out.
Correct Nuno is an ex goalkeeper, and oh how he must cringe at our current keeper, he continues to just parry the blocked save back into the danger zone, doesn’t speak or direct his defenders when under attack. Constantly causes corners against which have proved pivotal. This is just 1 player who is constantly not performing fight now.
Michael Carrick may be available shortly. JUST A THOUGHT
Keep your thoughts to yourself
Is that John Ayris or Johnny Ayris; it’s just that one is a bit more than a supporter.
I keep saying it , Nuno has got to go. Get Craig Bellamy. He loves our club.
Right Squad.Wrong manager.Its that simple and not arrogance.Any manager in the Championship would give their right arm to manage this squad.Nuno is just rinse and repeat.
I’m not sure Nuno knows how to stop the boring frustrating negative starts, if he does he’s doing F.all about it. We need to “burst out of the traps” from the start and get our strikers firing!
Agree 100%, Nuno is not learning from these mistakes.
He leaves gifted players sitting on the bench for 70 minutes, then decides to shake things up.
Soucek should have been a starter for one, Nuno is the manager , he picks who starts , but he’s getting it all wrong.
Nono for me is lacking in confidence, and does not read the game well.
If he stays, I do not believe we will gain automatic promotion.
He should be taken into a meeting and given an ultimatum, say 3 games to turn things around or P45.
Have to agree. Nunos defensive problems have been evident since he took charge and he hasn’t been able to rectify them. This to me says that he doesn’t know how, in which case he is not the man for this job.
Nuno must go he has no idea how to pick a team as for tatics there even worse this leaque has some very strong teams in it somr not so great but we make them look good because of the way we play its clear the other teams in this leaque see how we sturgle so they go for it from the off lraving us playing catch up we have been lucky up till now but thats changing rapidly
This manager can’t and won’t learn because he’s utterly incompetent and has been sacked by multiple clubs.
He’s an ex-reserve goalkeeper, for crying out loud. How many ex-goalkeepers, especially reserve ones, make good managers?
He’s an absolute fraud and a liability. Our biggest threat to promotion is keeping this clueless characterless cagey loser on as our manager.
Unfortunately, he will stay on. There’s no way that he’ll leave unless our form nosedives spectacularly, but that won’t happen in a league which is full of abysmal teams.