Micah Richards is one of the BBC’s better players – turned-pundits and he always makes sensible and entertaining comments. I especially enjoyed his podcast with Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker during the euros this summer. But in criticising Edson Alvarez‘ performance against Manchester United, I think Richards has wrongly singled out the Mexican.
Speaking on MOTD, Richards claimed that Alvarez “struggled because of the pace of the game and Manchester United’s movement in midfield”, stating that El Machin is too slow or as he puts it later “athletically unable to make that” referring to tracking back to deal with Garnacho.
Alvarez was singled out – somewhat unfairly – by Micah Richards
I thought Edson Alvarez actually had a decent game, some good work in the second half when he played a lower line almost as a third centre back when he was less reliant on pace.
To my mind, it is the slow, ponderous nature of his midfield partners which causes the problems for West Ham and puts the back four under pressure in most games we have played.
The trio – when they operate as such – of any three from the whole midfield contingent of Alvarez, Soler, Rodriguez Paquetá and Tomas Soucek are all similarly slow and whist they may be good in the tackle on their day, they cannot catch opponents and are a continual defensive achilles heel for West Ham.
Richards’ comments could be applied to all of West Ham’s midfield and therein lies the problem. One player on his own can be less than pacy – a trio is a liability. We will always be under pressure defensively whilst we have a slow, cumbersome, midfield which is ‘athletically unable’ to deal with pacy opponents.
The defensive line up now of Wan-Bissaka, Todibo, Kilman and Emerson seems to be performing better but can’t plug the gaps created in midfield as a pacy opponent – such as Garnacho last weekend – leaves Alvarez and co. trailing in his wake.
It does look as if we have recruited a whole similar collection of equally slow midfielders: Next season looks considerably brighter with the potential of Potts Earthy and Orford coming through to first-team standard and hopefully contending for squad positions. In the meantime I don’t think just swapping in Andy Irving is the answer.
Summerville is the only player with genuine pace. You are 100% correct!
I thought he played pretty well on Sunday. I would excuse him the lack of pace because he does make up for it with grit and tenacity. His biggest problem is picking up too many yellows and reds. It is true, We do need more pace in our midfield but they need a good mix different players with overlapping and different skill sets. Players who are capable of keeping possession or a decent passer take a man on………Gazza-like players are quite rare. If it’s just about pace we may as well do our scouting at the local athletics club
BBC punditry is a bit of a joke.
I personally boycott MotD, after years of watching highlights of games, which bear no relation to the game I watched live.
Agree that the WH midfield lacks pace, plus lack crisp one/two touch passing, and moving up/across the pitch with any haste or purpose.
Good point Martin, but also and perhaps more relevant , is that Alvarez is still recovering from a serious injury in the summer.
I don’t agree Martin. Micah Richards epitomises the current standard of punditry on all media at the moment, i.e. dreadful and just aimed at sensationalism. Certainly he was a lot better player than a lot of the others he shares a sofa with. The BBC in particular like to create a picture and the highlights on MOTD were totally unreflective of the game, as always, albeit we were awful in the first half. I for one thought Alvarez was one of our better performers. He was just let down by the rest of the midfield going missing in the first half. Richards comments about his lack of pace were just designed to justify the BBC message!
Many of us fans been boring on about this for years. We need legs, pace in central midfield if we dont want to play a low block Moyesball tactic any longer. The biggest failure in our recruitment by far and yes worse than not recruiting a young fast pacy strong striker