West Ham’s lack of leadership in the dressing room has long been criticised with former players – Nigel Red Coker being one – commenting that ever since Graham Potter’s cull of senior squad members the lack of vocal, senior squad members had led to a vacuum.
Sweeping away the experience of Antonio, Fabianski, Coufal and Cresswell in one fell swoop denied the Hammers the expertise of hundreds and hundreds of league games – and it’s been notable since how their voices have been missed at moments when the Irons have caved under pressure.
Shipping out unwanted experienced professionals like Aaron Wan Bissaka has further hollowed out the experience quotient in West Ham’s defence – so the arrival of Joel Veltman on a free transfer in the summer offered something of a double benefit.
Not only did the Hammers get cover for Kyle Walker Peters at right back, but a vastly experienced defender with 191 Brighton appearances under his belt. As the NY Times has observed this morning, Veltman’s leadership has been invaluable in shaping West Ham’s future:
“Behind the scenes, he has shown leadership with his willingness to help academy prospects”
Veltman and Bowen – growing signs of a good understanding in link up play on West Ham’s right flank
Plus, when fit, Veltman is seen more and more as the ‘successor ‘to Vlad Coufal (although he’s the same age..) in both his attacking style and the link-up play which he’s developing with Jarrod Bowen on West Ham’s right flank – in a way that Walker Peters has so far failed to do.
“Not since Vladimir Coufal have Bowen’s performances been complimented by an attack-minded right-back. Coufal, who left in the summer of 2025 to join German side Hoffenheim following the expiry of his contract, provided seven assists for Bowen, the most by any West Ham player since October 2020.
Although it is early days, Veltman fits the profile to mirror Coufal’s offensive traits. Walker-Peters, however, has struggled to show similar chemistry with Bowen.”
West Ham’s main task is simply to keep the 34 year old fit enough to fully exploit Veltman’s experience and growing interplay with Bowen.
Hopefully he’ll return fit and firing in tonight’s visit to Lincoln, reinstated to the starting line up after Walker Peters’ disappointing first half against QPR.
When we did have more senior players in the squad there were plenty of articles about how we had an aging squad and how we needed to clear them out and get new younger quicker players in. As for the idea that Antonio might have been some sort of role model in the dressing room I think that needs some work. Coufal and Cresswell were both excellent servants to the club but were getting rinsed for pace most weeks in their final season. Moyes created the problem. He had success by keeping a stable (and aging) squad and left us with the issue that several key players all arrived at the end of their PL careers at the same time. We’ve never managed to replace the stability or the spine of the team.
He is nothing like Coufal, he is probably a better defender but offers little offensively.
We need to buy a right back that can offer us a threat offensively and that has pace and physicality.
If Adama can cross the ball likewise on the left we need to get him on the field. Morato offers a bit defensively similar to Veltman but very little offensively both of those have one assist and that’s pretty much the limit we might get 2 or 3 offensive actions leading to goals per season which isn’t enough.
A far superior player to Walker Peters and should play whenever he is fit