Julen Lopetegui stopped short of blaming Emerson and Konstantinos Mavropanos for yesterday’s loss to Manchester City. However, he pointed to individual mistakes as key factors in the defeat and pointed out that a team as good as Pepe Guardiola’s side are always likely to punish errors.
Emerson’s poor pass to Lucas Paqueta early in the first half led to Erling Haaland’s opener. While some might single out players for City’s second goal, it was the result of a slick move by a formidable team and a ridiculously good striker.
City’s third goal, however, was entirely avoidable. Dinos Mavropanos was drawn out of position, leaving Guido Rodriguez in a foot race he was never going to win. This was a turning point in the match, as West Ham were still in contention at 2-1 and playing well, a point that Lopetegui highlighted in his post-match comments.
“I think we did really well in the second half, but we didn’t score, and against teams like this, you can’t afford mistakes because they don’t forgive,” remarked the Hammers’ head coach.
“It’s true that we made some small errors, and in matches like this, you can’t give away such chances. It’s a pity because the players put in a big effort today, especially after a tough match against Bournemouth three days ago.
We were very close to equalizing, and I believe we deserved it, especially in the second half. But we didn’t, and now we need to focus on the positives and work on improving the areas where we fell short.”
Oh for the days when the rules allowed you to even up players like Haaland by having a full back having him hobbling after ten minutes or preventing the hat trick because you can’t get that third goal when you are on a stretcher. Amazing though how the press (and even this site) now purr at the efficiency of Pep’s team and fail to point out how strange it is that the authorities still have failed to take any action on any of the 115 charges they face. No doubt they’ll get to the Paqueta one before they make any progress there. It’s not Haaland that is the superstar at City. It’s the expensive lawyers they employ that guarantee them success.
No one seems to want to mention mavraponas pulled out of a tackle for the third goal I would drop him for that alone
Hmm, food for thought. Though I can’t help feeling that there’s just a few sour grapes in there somewhere!
I guess there is a lot of resentment in the EPL football community outside of Manchester City though.
Sour grapes? West Ham and others follow the financial rules. So whereas the club and many on here would have bought John Duran, we didn’t because it broke the rules. It wasn’t that it was not financially feasible. Manchester City got to be a dominant club through rule breaking and loopholes. That is how they afford so many expensive players. Haaland earns over half a million pounds a week. That’s more than one quarter of what we pay our entire squad. You can admire City’s football, but you have to understand how they got there and stay there.
Excellent point dudly well put across