Graham Potter’s decision to deploy Edson Álvarez as West Ham’s furthest forward midfielder in the Premier League loss to Newcastle was baffling, to say the least.
The Mexican midfielder is a stopper by trade—a central enforcer more suited to CDM, following his stint as a central defender at Club América. Álvarez has a tenacious, ‘never quit’ attitude, excellent drive, and a good eye for ball recovery.
But most would concede that the £33m signing from Ajax is not a subtle player suited to using his technique to open up an opposition defence.
Álvarez was far from the worst West Ham player during the 1-0 loss to Eddie Howe’s team, and he wasn’t even the Hammers’ worst midfielder on the night. But as square pegs in round holes go, the deployment of Edson as creator-in-chief was a huge error.
Unsurprisingly, Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus were completely isolated with no creativity behind them. Kudus tried his best, dropping deep to look for the ball, but it was a futile task with so many Newcastle defenders to beat.
I still haven’t really got over the fact that West Ham’s manager only played two attackers in a home game. Realistically, there was no need for that, with creative midfielders Carlos Soler and Lucas Paquetá on the bench. Sat alongside them, twiddling their thumbs, were Luis Guilherme and Potter’s supposed primary transfer target, Evan Ferguson.
Unfortunately, instead, we had to endure Álvarez in attacking midfield when there were a multitude of other options. That is not a midfield I hope to see too many more times.
The biggest issue for me is Soucek. Soucek is not a baller. He cannot pass the ball properly and has not got a football brain. He scores the odd goal and has good work rate but he makes too many errors and has had far too many missed chances from close range. He is industrious but is lacking football class
Well, if we never try out these things, we will never know!!
We have the rest of this season to experiment and discover. So, let’s use it to make a flying start to the next campaign.
COYI
Hmmm, well who else was going to provide the higher pressing out of the central midfield? JWP and Soucek make Alvarez look like Usain Bolt. The root cause is as per an earlier article today on the site about not replacing the legs that Rice provided in midfield. Alvatez aint suited to it but no one else is any better. The squad for central midfield and even other ateas of the team still looks like what it was assembled for in the Moyes era which is low possession, low block and fast countering. Hindsight can suggest Alvarez position and tactics were a key reason for a defeat but not for me. The options were limited to non existent if we wanted to not sit even deeper.
If we had tried to force our way forward with overlapping full backs as suggested we would have been torn apart on the counter by Newcastle just as we were regularly under Lopetegui. We dont have the squad yet to play the way we want. Lets see ehere we are a few months into next season. Potter is providing triage just now
And apart from missing a sitter the game passed soucek by he offered absolutely nothing in either box and one of Newcastle’s counters was embarrassing to watch how tonali left him trailing with soucek losing a foot race which got longer with every stride it was embarrassing,he cannot keep starting, he’s just an impact player at best
Totally agree. You seem to be the only one who actually sees Soucek for what he is!! Everyone else ignores the fact that Soucek is no where good enough to play in midfield. Why does nobody notice he cannot string a decent pass together or has no assists to his name
Potter is the manager, but he really needs to listen to the fans. Alvarez was very poor , no way he should have been on the pitch for the 2nd half.As every manager knows it’s not easy to win any premiership game , so for any team to succeed the eleven players on the pitch need to perform .
Also , I would like Potter to explain how Ings was brought on, a player who cannot perform anymore at premiership level
Manager can never listen to the fans most have never played the game certainly not at a decent level and as for Ings he was desperate for a goal who else is ther we all know a major upheaval is needed
Don’t need to be guided by fans.
Ings may appear to be desperate for a goal but his aspirations haven’t come all season.
He knows he’s going and that’s not likely to give him much inspiration.
Needed some pace and Guilherme (although lacking playing time) would have been a better option.