Manuel Pellegrini insisted he will persist with a high defensive line tactic and refused to blame it as the reason for the nature of the Liverpool loss on Sunday.
Challenged by a Sky Sports reporter that West Ham players haven’t got the high defensive line quite right Pellegrini said “No. No I know think we had any problem, maybe we had a problem for the wings, the crosses but about the defending I don’t remember too many saves of Luca Fabianski. We are working one way, we will continue playing the same way”
Pellegrini refused to single out Arthur Masuaku saying he doesn’t talk about individual player performances and prefers to speak about the team performance. Pellegrini told Sky “I don’t like to analyse individual players, as for the team it is not good that we conceded four goals but we didn’t so, so bad. We didn’t attack well. we didn’t create chances in the second half. We need to improve on all sides”
Looking at a couple of papers today I notice that ‘expert’ journos are now claiming the transfers were ‘poorly planned’ etc. I think that is called being wise after the event as I didn’t see any identify this at the time. But that is not to say they won’t be proved right. Obviously Pellegrini has to be given time . I hope he will now see that Masuaku is never going to be a proper defender- if Mr P turns him into one he is definitely a genius! A lot of us on here, unlike the journos, have been pointing to the need for a decent CDM. Again, we have to give Sanchez a chance to prove he is the answer.
So, jury out at this stage. But for me the most disappointing thing was not the defeat, but yet again the dreadful defending & our inability to compete with a big side. I am clinging to my belief that a manager with his experience & £100m can at least sort that out.
I know it’s early days and the players and manager are bedding in, but losing Kouyate without a proper replacement looks like a mistake. William Carvalho would have made a huge difference to our squad.