Here is my first vlog of the season and it wasn’t exactly what I had planned for my first video of the new campaign.
As ever I left home full of hope on what was a sunny day at the south coast and I was reasonably confident having enjoyed our 3-1 win at the same ground last season. Southampton were in miserable form at home and hadn’t scored a goal since the Mary Rose sank a few miles south of the Saints stadium in 1545 so they would have been delighted to welcome West Ham of all teams. If a team or striker is on a barren run then you can always rely on the trusty Hammers to help them back into form and this was to be no exception.
I remember Manolo Gabbiadini scoring on his debut in the corresponding fixture last season and whilst I’m not the worlds best statistician I’m pretty sure that he’s not scored too many since. With Winston Reid injured in the warm-up West Ham United were perfect opposition to help the Italian journeyman find the net again and that set the tone for what seemed like a one-sided first half.
As ever our fans were in fine voice and supported the team throughout as you will see from the video but ultimately it was a disappointing day with a few positives.
It was nice to see Bilic give Declan Rice a start, Antonio get a good run-out, Sakho play his second game and of course Javier Hernandez get a brace but ultimately it was always going to be an uphill struggle following Marko Arnautovic’s red card. What he thought he was doing was anybody’s guess but having now seen in on TV it’s quite obvious that the card was deserved and he’s let everybody down.
It might be early in the season but anything less than a win at Newcastle will see huge pressure on the manager and the next three games are all incredibly important.
COYI
spot on kris
Down to 10 men. We ended up playing a lot more direct and with pace. It suited us, and antonio and hernandez.
Let’s see if the manager recognises something in that..
I lay a large portion of the blame to the management team for both defeats. The systems deployed in both games were wrong. I am sorry but I think Bilic prefers 4-3-3 but it does not suit the players we have. We need Sakho, Antonio and Hernandez in the team so it makes sense the system we deploy has to be with two strikers (3-5-2) or Hernandez as a 10 in a 4-4-1-1. I am sad to say that I just cannot believe that bilic and his mgt team cannot see this, We need to sign a top CH (not that guy from Sunderland) and a top CM (Carvallio at any cost). We also need another left sided wide player. Bilic needs to start realising that 4-3-3 will not work with this squad of players.
I’ve not been convinced by Sakho, since his return. He’s had a couple of really good header opportunities which he has completely mistimed.
He was poor v Mancs and only slightly better yesterday.
Chicharito looked very good up front – less so when he was asked to drop deeper.
Arnautovic should be fined a huge wedge of his salary for:
A. Making himself unavailable
B. Losing us points yesterday.
give Sakho 5 or 6 games. he’s been out for almost a year.
Happy to wait and see, but he’s not ready for a starting place at the mo.