By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
West Ham’s 2-1 defeat to Charlton was worrying for plenty of reasons, but perhaps the biggest concern was just how leaderless Nuno Espírito Santo’s team looked.
The Hammers once again started slowly and were punished after only six minutes. Konstantinos Mavropanos then produced a horrendous mistake to gift Tyreece Campbell Charlton’s second shortly after half-time.
Joel Piroe’s debut goal eventually gave West Ham some hope and Lewis Orford’s introduction improved the midfield, but there was no disguising what had happened.
Charlton wanted it more.
They played with greater intensity, more pace and, for long periods, considerably more purpose.
West Ham’s lack of pace exposed again
I’ve been banging on about West Ham’s lack of pace for weeks and today demonstrated precisely why.
Championship teams are going to arrive at the London Stadium with the scent of blood in their nostrils if they see a team unable to match their running and physicality.
Once Charlton sat back and challenged West Ham to break them down, we didn’t really know how.
That was particularly concerning given the arrival of £22million midfielder Arne Engels.
The former Celtic man improved after Orford came on, but there was very little evidence of the creativity West Ham desperately need.
I’m certainly not writing Engels off after one game. That would be ridiculous.
But our Premier League experience and expensive signings mean very little if you can’t move the ball quickly enough to hurt Championship opposition.
Manor Solomon provided occasional flashes and Jarrod Bowen became increasingly dangerous after half-time, but there simply wasn’t enough attacking quality around them.
Piroe scored but there was little else to shout about
Where was the leadership?
Nothing summed up the lack of leadership better than what happened in stoppage time.
Orford won West Ham a penalty when former Hammer Conor Coventry handled the ball, presenting the Hammers with an unlikely opportunity to rescue a point.
Somehow, Taty Castellanos took it.
I find that astonishing.
Castellanos had endured a dreadful afternoon. He’d been booked for diving when West Ham were in an excellent attacking position, looked increasingly frustrated and had already demonstrated that he wasn’t in the correct mindset.
He’s a hothead. We know that.
So where was the captain?
Bowen should have taken the ball, taken responsibility and told Castellanos that this wasn’t his moment.
Taty subsequently missed and West Ham lost 2-1.
Perhaps an equaliser would only have papered over the cracks anyway, because there were some enormous ones on display.
Nuno has plenty to fix
Nuno got plenty wrong tactically, including the strange deployment of Piroe behind Castellanos during the first half, but this goes beyond the manager.
As I wrote when looking at what Piroe would bring to West Ham, he is a penalty-box operator who needs the ammunition provided for him. Playing him in behind Castellanos seemed an odd use of his strengths.
West Ham lack pace, creativity and, worryingly, leadership.
Unless those problems are addressed quickly, Charlton won’t be the last supposedly lesser team to come to the London Stadium with the scent of blood in their nostrils and give the Hammers a footballing lesson.
Don’t rate Bowen as a captain or a leader on the pitch,.it just isn’t on his game. Great player but not all great players make good captains and Bowen is in that camp.
Since he was given the captaincy by J Lo,.only because Dyer made a point of it, we haven’t shown any on field leadership at all. Losing Noble, then Rice we have lacked a real grit in the squad. Both are captain material, Bowen just isn’t.
We need a good captain who has courage in the field to marshall players. We see no translation from a manager to a player on the field. That is what a captain is for and to tell the manager when it isn’t working.
Nuno was sacked by Forest because he’s useless . He’s a former GK with no creativity and all of Westham’s owners are to blame for leading Westham towards the third tier ..The club is dead while all those greedy culprits remain ,
I said on a previous article yesterday that 1. We would lose 1-3 annd take no pleasure in being a goal away. 2. Taty won’t work well as a front two and even swapping them around would make no difference. The problem is there is no one to do the pressing. Piroe lacks pace is immobile and purely a passive finisher who as you said needs incredibly good service. For all his faults Pablo does all the grafting and pressing.
Some of the team clearly don’t want to be here and others clearly don’t want to play for Nuno. Thx team will get worse until someone sees the light and gives Nervous Nuno his P45, but thanks to Staveley I can’t see how this will happen. The Board is paralysed by the takeover conflict and there is no one atm who can make this action..
The players are not playing for Nuno and do not buying into what he wants on the pitch…the sideways and backwards passing so negative so soul destroying to the players and fans alike…we have no leader in the boardroom we have no leaders on the pitch and a Manager that will lead us to the same fate Leicester suffered last year.
Action has to be taken now this week before even more damage and moral eroded from players clearly playing in a depression and it will take a man with fire in his belly to get a tune out of our underperforming squad and put belief back in their hearts and that man is certainly not Nuno…….We also need players to have a fear toward the manager something that makes them worry about underperforming on the pitch……Eddie Howe? not for me Craig Bellamy could be that man but would the club have the sack to pay of Nuno and buy Bellamy out of his contract? i doubt..do they have the money oh yes they do but will they well i doubt that very much indeed.
Nuno has to go now.
Yes he has no tactical awareness
de ja vous since Moyes.
it’s beyond me who scouts our signings.
modern football should be
1. pace
2. strength
3. appetite to compete.
our signings are awful for years, who does scout our players?
We need a new manager who’ll take the captaincy off Bowen. I was actually hoping he’d go this summer to make it less painful, but the band-aid needs to come off now, I’m afraid. Great player, pony leader.