Normally this is the opportunity to get a little perspective and positivity after the game of the day before, once the emotion has died down and a state of calm has returned.
West Ham still sit third in the Championship, thanks largely to Swansea City’s 5 – 0 humbling by Queens Park Rangers. Three points off the new leaders Middlesborough.
So compared with the ‘bad day at the office‘ suffered by last week’s league leaders Swansea, West Ham’s defeat by a single goal doesn’t seem quite so terrible.
One startling statistic stood out for me in the many after-game post mortems taking place on line.
Tomas Soucek has now scored three goals for West Ham this season. More goals than Pablo in his eight appearances, more than Castellanos in his eleven and the same as Joel Piroe in his eleven appearances.
Taty – out of position as a lone striker or just out of form?
Yet Soucek has been injured for three months and played just one half against QPR and a couple of substitute cameos. The fact that he’s on the scoresheet three times already suggests all is not well with West Ham’s striker contingent, who are being outscored by a veteran midfielder just back from a long ankle ligament injury layoff.
And despite West Ham’s 26 shots yesterday it was Walker-Peters and Soucek who got onto the score sheet, admittedly with strikes which any of the trio of front men would have been proud of.
Profligacy in front of goal is something of a trademark of this division and it would be churlish to complain too loudly, looking at the Irons’ healthy goal difference.
But when you combine 26 attempts – missing goals down one end – with gifting your opponent a three goal lead at the other end of the pitch, the end result is never going to be pretty.
West Ham got just what they deserved yesterday and had better find a way to fix their shortcomings fast.
Nuno needs to forget his beloved 4-4-2, and change to 4-2-4 until we get a proven centre forward and Hermansen should be replaced for the more agile Areola.
One of Souceks strengths is his finishing. We need to fix the lacklustre starts, we need to come out with the tempo that we hit after twenty minutes or so then keep up for the rest of the game. We should have won that game yesterday as overall we were on top, it’s not good enough for a team with aspirations.
So far I haven’t joined the “Nuno out” bandwagon but I may soon change my mind. It wasn’t just the usual poor start that got me yesterday but his bizarre substitution strategy!
how much more rope does Nuno get? slow starts, negative line ups (1 up front) and nonsensical substitutions…the definition of madness is to keep repeating the same mistakes, but expecting a different result…time to order that taxi..
Didn’t stay up to watch the game. Glad now that I didn’t.
I have read just about every report going.
They all point out the same thing.
West Ham sleepwalk into every game gifting the opposition early goals.
It doesn’t matter how good the team is offensively, in this league or any other, you can’t gift goals and expect to win.
Nuno needs to sort this out pronto. Sick of hearing it in the aftermath, have done since the last days on Moyse.
Step up time gaffer, get it sorted.