Julen Lopetegui kicked-off his tenure as West Ham United Head Coach with a home defeat against Aston Villa at a sun drenched London Stadium.
After just four minutes Soucek conceded a corner with a loose touch and it proved very costly indeed. Tielemans took the corner, Onana got away from a static Antonio and thumped a header past Areola for a 1-0 lead.
After another half an hour of huff and puff, a penalty was given to the Irons
Paqueta’s ball into the box was controlled by Soucek on his chest. As he tried to get away to get his shot in, the previously booked Cash fouled him and was perhaps lucky to avoid a second yellow
Nevertheless, the previously anonymous Lucas Paqueta stared down Emi Martinez down and slowly passed the ball into the net. Lovely penalty; he didn’t even look at the ball!
Paqueta slots home to make it 1-1
Until the equaliser, it had to be said that Villa look a yard sharper than West Ham and were perhaps unlucky not to have been further ahead.
Into the break all square, I was surprised to see no changes by Lopetegui for the second half.
The Irons definitely started brighter and had a number of half chances , mainly involving Mo Kudus who was without doubt was West Ham’s biggest goal threat.
A mention for Guido Rodriguez, he is neat and tidy on the ball and tigerish when not on the ball. He’s won a fair few back with front-foot play.
Duran breaks Hammers hearts
On the hour mark one of our summer targets, Jhon Duran came on and then with almost his first touch nearly scored !
West Ham were losing their way a bit and Lopetegui responded by calling Niclas Fullkrug, Crysensio Summerville and James Ward-Prowse to replace Lucas Paqueta, Mikey Antonio and, Jarrod Bowen who had a quiet game by his high standards.
Then on the 79th minute Duran bit the hand that wanted to feed him. Torres lifted the ball left,, Ramsey crossed and Duran fired low through Areola’s legs with his left foot. 2-1 to Villa
With five minutes to go Danny Ings and Jean-Clair Todibo replaced Vladimir Coufal and Guido Rodriguez. That meant a switch to three at the back and with five minutes to go, Ings’ first touch was a flicked header from Summerville’s cross that drew a decent save from Martinez.
With almost the last kick of the game Summerville crossed deep. Kudus collected and crossed to the far post for Soucek, who heads goalwards. Konsa blocks,
The ball bounced back towards Soucek, who sliced it over from three yards!
The Irons improved in the second half, with Mohammed Kudus a big threat on the left, but overall Villa probably deserved the win.
The debutants looked good, the bench looked strong. I do not think that will be out starting line up before too long. Impressed by Rodriguez and Kudus as always. I’m sure that we will improve on that.
I was surprised that Soucek was on the pitch. He loses possession too often( as he did under Moyes.)
A lack lustre performance from the team, so disappointing
perhaps instead of the German & paid the £40 million for Duran we would’ve had the 3 points & alot of last years crap needs moved on pronto
Onana headed from 4yds out where was areola compare him to villas goalie who came out for every corner he’s a liability
Couldn’t agree more. For all the good saves he makes, they’re often because Arreola stays glued to his line. Struggles mightily with controlling the box. But Mickey lost his man entirely, so hard to totally blame the keeper.
This is what I feared- & said so in a post here before the game – Villa were better than us & deserved the win. As usual with West Ham, we could have got a point, but didn’t deserve one. We need a couple more capable defenders, but the defence wasn’t too bad. I was surprised by Mavroponos (who I generally think is a disaster waiting to happen) but he played quite well. Kilman looks good & was our best defender. Coufal wasn’t too bad. Wasn’t impressed by Rodriguez, Bowen & Soucek. As usual, Kudus was superb. Overall; it will take time & we weren’t TOO bad. But there is a lot of quality in the squad, we will improve & , provided we get at least one top defender, we will finish anywhere between 6 & 12.
Ironic 2 players who scored both linked to whu.
Moyes ghost returns he had Onana signing on the dotted line and pulled the plug, to expensive.
Duran looks like he has crushed any links now so it is back to Tammy Abraham.
Wanted a win and JLo was an happy bunny but it was recognised time maybe needed to gel.
It’s harsh to start nailing any players so early.
“A mention for Guido Rodriguez”??? What game were you watching? He was anonymous and basically acted like a third CB, and I don’t think made more than one forward pass that I could remember. Not useless, but didn’t look like he deserved to be starting.
West Ham are too slow. And I can’t understand why Areola is the main keeper. He is rather average.
Lopetegui had a chance to make changes at half time and waited for far too long. Antonio is not up to playing for more than 45 minutes.
Drastic changes are needed. More speed, more aggression and using the new players from the start. Today we saw the performance of a mid-table team. Let’s see if that can be changed.
What had changed…..nothing!
Mid table at best!
# Gutted.
TWO hundred mill spent and still we have a crap team playing with last seasons dodgy players. We have had months building our squad and yet they are not prepared and we have Antonio marking a giant of a player almost on our goal line where he couldnt miss. We have a giant centre back and yet he was not marking the goal scorer. Second division players could do better than this. I am very disappointed with the team selection and the shocking display with only a few exceptions. Already we are showing we are not capable of gettingTim into the top SIX or Ten.
Not capable of getting Tim into the top 6? Wow, is it all about him now?
Nothing is more West Ham than a striker we tried all summer to sign coming on and scoring the winner. Duran showed in 20 minutes why we should have just payed the money. Still, we started with Antonio and bought on Fullkrug and Ings so top six nailed on. Also, we can’t sell Soucek, he is comedy gold. No other player would have decided to try and head that across goal instead of in it. We will improve once Wan-Bissaka starts and Alvarez is back but everyone still looked like a rabbit between the headlights when someone ran at them. Give it time, there’s still alot of deadwood to get rid of
Behave! The new players needed bedding in, wasn’t going to play then all, especially the ones that arrived this week. Going to take time to get used to each other and be manager and way of playing
That was supposed to be a reply to Tim, not sure why on the bottom
No need to panic guys, it’s only the first game! Let’s see where we are after 10 games before jumping to conc About the manager, new recruits or style of play.
Wow one game under the new manager and there is already people moaning.
We have bought some good players and it’s going to take some time to gel.
Over the years any WHU fan would have guessed Duran would have scored today & wasnt we buying Onana last year, but surely Duran at 20 has to be a better buy than a 31 year old, must be on resale, anyway time will tell. Ive said this before get players in ready for pre season but we never do . How many games are we goner lose before players gel ?
Looking at the fixtures I would say the first 3 games were possible losses, but hope not. Im sure the lynch mob will be in full voice by then. It is an old cliche but new teams do need time to gel and I think they will especially when Edson returns.