Manager Manuel Pellegrini believes the Hammers showed improvement over last week’s City fiasco but admits he is still trying to find the best way to play.”
It’s important that games such as the one at Brighton today are not lost so from that point of view a draw was an improvement on the last campaign!
But it remains a little surprising to hear him admit that he is still looking for the right system when – apart from three outfield player – we have the same squad as last season.
However, like most of the rest of us, he will take the draw and look for more improvement when we travel to Watford next week and on from there.
With Lanzini coming back to his ultimate best that is hopefully likely to be the case although it needs to be said we have – in the last two games – looked one paced in the middle of the park.
Speaking at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/august/17-august/pellegrini-we-improved-last-week the manager said: “I think it’s a good point. They are a difficult team, who played with a lot of trust after their win at Watford last week.
“We started well for the first 20 minutes, but we didn’t create chances. After that we disappeared from the pitch and Brighton had all the possession. We defended well and they didn’t create too many chances. “In the second half, it was a good game for both teams. Both had opportunities
“In the second half, our play improved. Antonio gave us power up front, we played with two strikers and that was better.
“We improved in defending without any doubt, although Brighton did create a couple of dangerous chances in our box, but we need to have more possession and create more chances ourselves, making better balls in those areas.
“Of course we improved from last week and it’s [always important] not to lose when you play away.”
“We need to find the best way to play with new players, we have a lot of different options now and we must try to integrate them into our team – we’re talking about Yarmolenko, about Carlos Sanchez too, as well as Fornals, Ajeti and Haller.
“That’s why it was important not to lose today and I hope we will continue improving in the next games.”
He mentioned how we’d improved defensively. Not sure watch he was watching, the difference was Brighton didn’t have world class clinical forwards, if they had of done, it could well have been 5 again. Masuaku was every bit as poor as Cresswell. People have been banging on about Masuaku replacing Cresswell and I just kept thinking, just wait until you remember how useless Arthur is. Didn’t take long to find out. The harsh reality is both of our left backs are poor and we didn’t address it, so unless Ben Johnson or Cardoso are a revelation this season, we’ll be exposed again and again.
Lets be fair to the left backs though, our right backs and centre backs are pretty rubbish too! Fredericks so far isn’t the player I want him to be, we all know he has pace to burn but how is that benefiting the team so far? It’s usually covering over positional mistakes or running up the pitch and not doing anything. With that pace, I want to see overlaps and crosses. Problem is he can’t cross. I’d have him in for an extra hour every day just hitting cross after cross. His pace can be such a weapon but at the moment it has virtually no use. Centre backs lack of footballing ability will stop us playing the brand of football Pellegrini wants to see. We need defenders who can play. Issa could last season so it’s reasonable to assume he still can. It’s starting to look like Dec needs to play alongside him, but then who plays CDM? Another area we neglected.
It’s early, but I’m not remotely impressed with today’s performance. We’ll need a vast improvement against Watford next week who themselves will be desperate to pick up their first points of the season.
Pelle is making no sense with his comments. The result was better but the performance was terrible. I also think his team selection and formation were terrible. How many more times does he need to watch Fredericks, Ogbonno, Wilshere to realise they are not good enough. How many more times does he need to see that Masa cannot defend (would have him all day long ahead of Cresswell). How many more games does he need to realse that Fornals is not a right winger. He is a CM box to box 8. He surely has to realise soon we need to play 3 at the back with Johnson or Zaba and Masa as wing backs. He needs to play Fornals or Lanzini in with Rice and Anderson behind a front two of Haller and Antonio or Hernandez. We should be beating teams like Brighton, not good enough to say we improved. I really hope he sees these things as we are going nowhere otherwise.
I can’t believe MP said we defended well, if Brighton had taken their chances we would have been 3 down at 1/2 time. Our midfield looks lightweight without Anderson, and Fornals looks a long way off PL standard, needs too much time. Willshere looks very fragile. Despite a well taken goal Hernandez can’t play as a centre forward, he’s just too small!
MP needs to think about defence and try to keep some clean sheets by going to 5 at the back, or play Zaba alongside Rice until Nobes is fit, we’re really missing the skipper!
Totally agree, Zaba in the holding Mid alongside Rice has to given a shot?
I agree with that. A better option than Sanchez and at least some leadership on the field.
Unlike last season,we have a relatively easy start to the season ( apart from Man City ), but wether it’s home or away,We can’t be satisfied with just draws,especially with likes of Brighton,Watford or Leicester,who will be around us in the table.If we get draws from the top 6 big teams, then that’s fine and if we nick a win or two, that’s good too.We weren’t the only ones who spent big in the transfer window.Its not gonna be easier than last season.