The Last word…

Another game, another Moyes bashing…

Lets face it, Moyes can set a team up to create chances but he can’t control them in the moment, so it feels a little unfair to lay the blame at his feet for Coufal blasting the ball into the stands, Antonio spanking an effort over right in front of goal, Ings twitching at the ball every time he tried to take a shot…

He gave Paqueta more creative license, he put speedy players in Antonio and Kudus in the team and he let his full-backs surge down the flanks, and in fairness to him they did cause problems. Kudus in particular was a menace for much of the game – he and Paqueta are very scary when they click together.

What should be levelled at Moyes is the mess being left behind in midfield. James Ward-Prowse is a very polished footballer, with technical skills refined to the point of perfection – arguably the best set-piece taker the Premier League has had since David Beckham. Outside of those moments though he looks utterly out of place in this West Ham team – miles away from the attacking positions passing sideways, chasing shadows trying to impersonate being a defensive midfielder or watching the action pass him by. He was really ineffective today,, and I don’t really know what Moyes sees playing him in such a deep role.

Granted, Alvarez wasn’t much better today – he clearly wasn’t fit and had a very mediocre match, barely able to keep pace  and shoehorned forward to try and force the game West Ham’s way. Soucek, for all his limitations, was more effective when he came on. The pair were bad, and the complete lack of protection made it easy for Fulham to play the way they wanted, pinching the ball from West Ham in midfield and letting any of the attackers run at the backline.

Fabianski has every right to be furious – he had to stop a number of chances today and could easily have seen four or five fly past him. – Mavropanos was poor right up until injury forced him off, Coufal had no idea where Willian was for the entire match and Emerson failed to take any discipline or composure to his afternoon at left-back. Only Aguerd leaves the game with his stature improved – he is one of many accomplished players at the club now.

So where does that leave West Ham? They can’t fix their injuries, certainly, but one has to ask why Moyes has let the team fall into such a curious state at arguably the most important part of their season. If they want any hope of beating Bayer Leverkusen they’ll need a far stronger performance than both of their efforts today. They need Bowen back to replace the aging Ings, who was very off the pace, they need Paqueta to channel his obvious talent into a full, consistent ninety minutes, they need to drop Ward-Prowse and they need to hope their defence can hang on until recruitments arrive in the summer.