I’m fully aware that I’m probably being too fussy. After all, a 6-0 win away from home, complete with a clean sheet, is exactly what West Ham needed. We now head into the weekend’s huge game against top-of-the-table Swansea sitting third in the Championship and in a pretty decent position.
But I can’t help being concerned by the manner in which we struggled against a Lincoln City side reduced to nine men after just 22 minutes. Despite having such a huge numerical advantage, Nuno Espírito Santo’s team made incredibly hard work of the opening 45 minutes.
For much of that first half, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, had Lincoln not received those two red cards, I’m not entirely sure we’d have beaten them. Of course, it’s all ifs, buts and maybes. But until West Ham really find their rhythm and start looking capable of dominating possession and cutting teams apart, I suspect those concerns will remain.
Six Goals Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Lincoln had Tom Hamer dismissed after just two minutes, with Conor McGrandles following him down the tunnel on 22 minutes. Yet West Ham still struggled to string passes together, repeatedly surrendered possession and allowed Lincoln to look the better side for long periods.
Konstantinos Mavropanos finally broke the deadlock just before half-time, before Nuno’s tactical changes at the interval helped transform the game.
Edvin Austbø came off the bench to score a sensational curling effort, Jarrod Bowen added a deflected third, Pablo headed home and Tomáš Souček helped himself to two goals.
Bowen was excellent, even during that dreadful first half, while Austbø again showed why he’s such an exciting prospect. And Souček continues to demonstrate his remarkable ability to find the net from inside the penalty area.
In my latest video, I discuss the tactical problems, the players who impressed me and why I still have reservations about Nuno’s approach.
Ultimately, my first-half grumpiness had pretty much disappeared by the final whistle. Six goals, three points and a clean sheet will do that to you!
But as I explain in the video, I’m still not entirely convinced by what I’m watching from West Ham.
West Ham is still a work in progress. We are by no means the finished article just yet.
A well-oiled machine is the aim, but that doesn’t happen too quickly in the football team world.
Another great result, though and it is to be hoped that we just get better and better. A measure of that improvement could be making the opposition look poor for more of the game than at present. However, our opponents will always have their own moments and spells in games when whatever they attempt comes off.
I was happy with it all. Maybe just easily pleased these days.
COYI
I’m not convinced either.
The Swansea game will though
They are not convincing compare thier approach to there competitors there’s alot they don’t
Engels gave the ball away so many times in the half he was on.. I’m still not happy with Nuno. What does a retired second choice goalie know about Championship attack? We need the guile of Bellamy soon, if not now.
What does a retired second choice goalie know about Championship attack? Well there was one who won the championship in 2017-8 with Wolves. 99 points and 82 goals. Was that the guy you were thinking about? As for Bellamy managing Wales wins 9 draws 7 losses 7 goals for 36 against 28. Not terrible, but you’d bet everything on him taking us up?
Can’t knock a 6-0 win, but it was against 9 men.
It was a awful game to watch.We we’re so poor, lacking confidence,and no pace to the game.
This is the big test against Swansea, play last ke this and we will be slaughtered in my opinion.
It’s nice to win but felt very deflated at the final whistle
I hop we can up our game and pace of attack and make it exciting football to watch
The pressure I understand is on us,but we do have the quality.
I agree had lincon not had 2 players sent off so early in the game im not sure we would have won given how badly we strugled in tje first half yes wining 6-0 is a great result but it took till the second half again before things got going against lincon we got a big win but playing against 9 players of lincon that were unable to compete in second half.was always going to be a massive strugle for the lincon team if we start like we did last night we will get beaten against swansea on saturday.nuno needs to start getting things right brfore it ends up costing us like it did last season.
Haven’t watched the video but agree with what you said, against a 10 man Lincoln they looked better than us at times.
It does follow a pattern where we grind teams down if looking for a positive spin.
We moved the ball faster but generally with a lack of penetration, against 9 players it was easier and after we scored easier still.
I also thought defensively we looked better when Golembeckis took Mav’s place, on quite a few occasions he was in the right place and showed how he is more than head and shoulders above every other defender we have including Veltman.
If he won’t drop Mav he should drop Kilman or Morato to make space for Golembeckis (if he goes with a back 3 and no fullbacks) Golembeckis also looks like he could probably be a genuine CDM unlike our others.
The supply into the box was generally poor all game, hitting the first defender over and over or wasting possession on potshots from miles away.
After the Swansea game we should have a good idea where we are COYI!!!
I echo your concerns, we have yet really to find any decent performance in the first half of a game and pile pressure on ourselves to “rescue” it in the second half. We should already be out of sight at the top of the division with the squad we have for The Championship but Nuno’s continuous tinkering continues to worry me about us finding any level of consistency; hope that changes very soon.
We have another game on Saturday and Swansea have had a day more rest. All that mattered last night, once the second red card was given, was winning the game and managing the squad to prepare for the upcoming, more difficult challenge. That was achieved although not getting Bowen off was perhaps a surprise. Piroe would have been a clear candidate for coming off, he had a generally poor game, but if it allowed us to rest our other front options and so made sense. Having two away games so close together, one of which is a visit to the top of the table is not easy task. Let’s try and remember that on Saturday.