West Ham’s welcome victory against bottom club Southampton illustrates again one facet of the Hammers’ head coaches’ strategy which is baffling: Lopetegui’s continuing reluctance to play the strongest squad – in their strongest places- from the start- is a source of continual head scratching.
It is as if the Spaniard has made his mind up and just doubles down on bad decisions, hoping week after week that one day his selection will pay off and the Hammers will rocket into a two or three goal lead in the first half.
It just never happens.
Starting Kudus on the left always looks a bad decision, whilst there is Crysencio Summerville sitting watching on. OK, by all means start Kudus OR Bowen on the right, with the other in the central role. But Still Lopetegui persists with ‘star boy’ out of position and ‘Cry’ on the bench.
Is it the principle I wonder, of the ‘Lopetegui way’? A stubborn nature, and desire to show ‘who is the boss’ over riding what is in the team’s best interest – or just a harmless but determined interpretation of how he wants to deploy his resources.
Either way, West Ham look far stronger when Kudus moves away from the left. From the comments yesterday clearly not everyone agrees that Summerville is a shoe-in for the left side. But struggling for so much of the game against the bottom team in the league – with creative fast young players on the bench – can’t pass without comment.
Perhaps the answer is just to take the move up to thirteenth spot ahead of Manchester United and be happy for the dodgy three points, however they come. And look forward to the Liverpool game as a ‘nothing to lose’ fixture. Maybe next time Kudus will get his move away from the left. Bet you he scores.
I too thought we won 1 nil, perhaps var have intervened and awarded saints a goal after the final whistle now that wouldn’t surprise me at all, as we seem to get 20 decisions against us for everyone that goes in our favour, I’ve forgotten the name of the player who tried to crock kilman and then got away with a yellow for was 100% a red card, then we have a player red carded but then rescinded after a var intervention the powers that be are ruining football because they have made the rules so confusing and they are totally inept as is lopetugui he has to go now no question about that. Come January I want him gone, i expect us to sign a top striker and a pacey and strong midfield dynamo, the new manager to play the players in there best positions no more excuses, and i want to see the youth players given a chance, and earthy recalled from loan and given minutes. At the moment we are watching the equivalent of an ismithian league team and any hammers fan who disagrees or thinks we are doing good is seriously deluded. This is the worst set of games I’ve seen us play under any manager in our entire history, no energy no clue no game plan yet we have a talented squad who don’t buy into whatever it is that lopetugui is trying not to do, every match same old thing we don’t turn up until we’re a, few goals down the, arsenal game being a great example that is, unacceptable full stop. So to the board stop pussy footing around sack the useless **** now, make those new, signings for the new manager and instruct him to play the players in the right positions and have 2 or 3 youths on the bench with their young and vibrant energy to come on with 25 or 30 mins to go to potentially change the course of the game if we aren’t winning. I love paqueta as a player but you can’t have him in the team at the moment because his head is all over the place. And we definitely need to be more disciplined on the pitch not keep getting stupid yellow cards for diving into unnecessary pointless tackles.
I agree by the time the chair has made his mind up there won’t be a decent manager left.? O’Neil?? We need Potter or similar now we got decent backing. Fingers crossed they make a good decision??
Bloody hell Martin, you MUST have had a big night! 1-1? If you check the results I think you’ll find we WON 0-1. Then again, in the last paragraph you did say we got a dodgy 3 points so you must have woken up by then. I hope you have been enjoying your festive season!
It doesn’t seem any less dire the following morning. Another one where I won’t bother with the extended highlights.
Don’t get excited Steve 1 the two wins we have had in the last few weeks we have been very fortunate not to have lost.
And they were against bottom/relegation sides.
Against Saints & Brighton, Fabs saved West Ham in both games.
Meanwhile the useless Lopetegui’s team is ahead of the fabulous super coach Amorim’s team on the Table. Well done Lope.
Sometimes I think we are a bit harsh on our team. If Liverpool ground out a 1-0 win it is because they are tough and tenacious. There are no certainties in the Prem,look at the Man City results. Fulham failed to beat or even score a few days back at home to a well organised Saints, the same Fulham who beat a currently well positioned Chelsea. We have got a few results going our way, let’s take the points and hope to build on them.
Agreed. This was a sound result and performance, especially in light of being battered at Leicester.
To be honest strangely I felt our defence looked stronger when Kilman went off
I watched the game and we won 0-1 so how did it become a draw?
Just shows how c*** this site is!
nicw to see you here 😊
Compared to the same fixtures last season, when we ultimately finished 9th, we are currently three points better off having conceded 7 fewer goals. All this with a new team and management, unbeaten in four.
Fully expecting to lose in Sunday but still finish top 7.
We won 1 nil. This website makes so many mistakes. It takes 2 seconds to check the headline of a post
so did Hugh, bless, him. awful spelling, paragraphs printed twice and he could be quite terse in the commonents section, and it frustrated me but, for mine, i took into account his age and whatever else may be going on in his life. same goes for everybody including these writers. they worked at christmas for you while you got fat. i don’t recall many of you getting stuck into Hugh for making a simple error on the keyboard. that’s because none of you did. bunch of over-privileged ingrates
Hopefully the useless Spaniards will get a thrashing from Liverpool and a poor Man City. Then he might get the sack
How annoying for you that the “useless Spaniard” is starting to win matches and move up the league.
He will when he moves to arsenal away from this rubbish struggling again against the worst team in the premier league is a joke how much longer had the hapless spaniard have not to long in bubbles potter we trust
Kudos to Arsenal?
LoL
🤦♂️
Thought we won this one 0-1 Martin 😄. I’m by no means a fan of Lopetegui and understand your frustration but I have to say on this occasion i don’t totally agree. The problems in the recent past were often caused by Moyse always playing his 11 favourites whenever possible and not using the squad. By definition, if you do make use of the squad you won’t be playing your strongest 11 every game. It’s just frustrating when we’re playing do poorly, and from that comes the wish to see the strongest team.