Arne Engels needs to be freed from the defensive duties with which he’s weighed down by West Ham’s current formation.
At least, that’s the gist of a report published last night suggesting that the Hammers need an old fashioned defensive midfielder at the heart of their side, to block off teams who at present appear to be able to play through their non-existent defensive shield owing to both Engels and Mukasa venturing too far forward too often.
As the 4thofficial suggested, there’s a remedy already at hand, a player largely ignored by Nuno yet one who could possibly could have a role to play in a more defensively solid West Ham United team, which is, frankly desperate to stop the early goals going in: Recalling defensive midfielder Edson Alvarez.
“From West Ham‘s perspective, reinstating Álvarez should come before abandoning the entire tactical framework. Engels has potential, but expecting the Belgian to provide attacking quality and defensive protection simultaneously places unnecessary pressure on an inexperienced midfield partnership.
Álvarez could give the centre-backs greater protection when attacking full-backs advance, while allowing Engels more freedom to distribute and move forward. That adjustment would address an immediate weakness without forcing another expensive recruitment exercise.”
Many have written off Alvarez as being too slow or too volatile in view of his disciplinary record – which other than an infamous red card against Liverpool – is perhaps not as bad as projected.
Report suggests the scrap- heap midfielder could do a job for Nuno.. if the West Ham manager is big enough to mend bridges with El Machin
Many Claret and Hugh readers have commented that Nuno’s side needs the extra solidity of a ‘number six’ sitting in front of the back line to which, in truth, Engels doesn’t seem to be best suited.
Perhaps, indeed, rather than abandon the whole ‘tactical framework’ or trying to fit yet another square peg into a round hole, Nuno could grasp the nettle and re-integrate the tailor made defensive minded midfielder Alvarez into his line up.
There’s a down side of course. Dropping one of Mukasa or Kanté would reduce West Ham’s creativity going forward. It could mean reverting Kanté to the bench blunderbuss role for the second half of games, exactly as he started the season so successfully.
It might make the Irons harder to score against in the first ’45 minutes anyway, Which at the moment couldn’t be such a bad thing. Is Nuno ready to grasp the nettle? Something has to give because right now, ‘hard work’ and ‘talking about it‘ isn’t fixing anything.
Martin although I agree it should be tried Nuno will never do it. He will not win both of the next games and should be sacked after that.
Let’s hope Nuno reads these reports, as I doubt he is able to come up with these ground breaking ideas (playing a defensive midfielder) by himself!!