Seb Haller was back to his very best today and showing for the first time he is perfectly able to play in a one up role which in itself begs rather a big question which has been bothering many over recent weeks.
Why, given he produced one of his best performances in the role today , couldn’t he do it for Pellegrini ? I think we know the answer – the man was uninspiring and clearly left most of the players in a bad place.
Haller was everywhere up front and but for some ill luck might have added a couple of assists to his outstanding goal – the sixth of the season
With the new manager watching on he and the rest of the lads had to impress a bloke who is well known as a Sgt Major manager and not likely to accept anything other than 100 per cent from any of the players.
Commenting at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2020/january/01-january/sebastien-haller-todays-win-belongs-team: he said: “We knew today that we are all in this situation together, so this is our task [as a squad] – and the new manager knows it also.
“He can speak to us, he can make every tactic possible, but it’s up to us to give what we have to give on the pitch. Today we tried hard to make the effort together, and today we got the rewards for this work: we were lucky [enough] to score four goals.
“For myself it [the goal] was just the best thing I could have hoped for this New Year. We know that we need some points to get out of this situation, and if I can score goals like that and help the team to win [in the process], that’s the best thing I can do.”
Haller appreciates both the guidance he has received from Moyes in his first few days and the faith he has enjoyed from the supporters.
He said: “[It was] not a long conversation because we’ve not had much time to prepare, but he’s spoken to me quite a few times, just explaining to me what he wants.”
“A lot of things have happened so I won’t lie, [my first few months] were not easy, but that’s life. That’s the life of a football player, so today was nice – now I’m just happy to help the team today.
“I’m trying to get the support that we want when we represent West Ham. We are like a big family with the supporters also, so we just need to support each other and make this club bigger.”
He didn’t really play 1 up top. Anderson’s played more like a second striker. It really worked, and made a big difference in having some one to link up with.
Nothing to do with Pellegrini, everything to do with dreadful opposition making it possible for our attacking midfielders to get close to Haller.
Would say it’s more to do with better service and people getting closer to him, but he ran about a lot more and looked like he wanted it more
Yes he had Anderson with him through the middle in attack, that support helped massively. So Haller wasn’t isolated. Their link up play was positive today, yes some didn’t come off with missed placed passes etc, but that will come. Haller winning the flick ons, Anderson running behind. Also Anderson did a lot of running today, tracking back to defend. That’s maybe why you think it was a 1 up top Pellegrini formation.
Anderson is much better through the middle, in a 10 role. To say today’s formation was a Pellegrini one is incorrect.
100% correct Anderson made all the difference playing along side, he was busy all game. They held their 442 shape all game and only really fell apart when Lanzini came on you could see him drop deeper and deeper, apart from some under hit passes I think haller had his best game but as another person said it did help the opposition was poor COYI
To be honest I don’t think he really was up top on his own, Well not in the Pellegrini way. Anderson seemed to be playing like the old Sheringham role… thought the pair of them were very good. Maybe with a little more time together some of them lose balls will stick and they could be an excellent partnership.
Was also pleased for Fredericks, don’t think u picked up in your ratings how well he played – should have had two excellent assists, not just one, if Lanzini hadn’t missed that header. Defensively he didn’t put a foot wrong either.
Great performances from both Haller and Anderson up front tonight. The whole team played well against a very poor Bournemouth. Ogbonna, Noble and Snodgrass were excellent. Great start for Moyes! I’m sure all the sceptics – I’ll call them that – will be pleased, too as we are all West Ham fans together. Tonight just showed what a bit of organisation and effort can do. The next 2 games will really show us whether these players have got what it takes. Best performance of the decade … COYI.
As everyone has said, Haller was more involved because he was part of a two man attack with Anderson tucked in behind him. Well done Hammers, win or lose if the players put that kind of effort in every week there wouldn’t be many complaints.
So, hopefully we have convinced Hugh that this wasn’t the old Pellegrini ‘one up top’ and that Haller does still need a partner to perform 🙂