West Ham’s biggest problem
Hughie Southon looks at West Ham’s biggest problem
West Ham United boss David Moyes finally seems to have owned up to his footballing philosophy and it really isn’t great to hear. A 4-1 defeat is bad enough in itself but when the manager declares he is disappointed we have lost the ability to be hard to beat it’s really time to worry if we weren’t already.
West Ham’s David Moyes has a big problem
We have shipped 12 goals over four games against top teams under Moyes who is known as a defensive coach and always seems more interested in shutting up shop rather than attacking the opposition teams and pressing them hard. His inability to produce a team capable of doing that suggests to me that the teams with really serious aspirations – to win games rather than make sure the other team doesn’t – will ensure we lose more games than we win.
We have often proudly talked about the team’s counter-attacking policy but it is not an approach that will over worry teams. Villa showed yesterday they are fully capable of doing the same as they showed when doing so whilst pressing the Hammers before the opening goal and for a long while afterwards.
For me it was summed up to perfection on the Claret and Hugh forum where winchester hammer declared: ” It was embarrassing. I think we’re seeing the real West Ham under Moyes here, the West Ham of last season, the West Ham that can’t keep the ball, and when they do, they move it at glacial speed.
Moyes biggest problem is worrying about being hard to beat
This is the West Ham, where Moyes’s main concern was that we’ve lost our ability to be tough to beat – not the positivity of going and thinking we can win. This is the biggest problem. He sends them out with the mentality of avoiding defeat, not of winning. For Moyes winning is a bonus! That’s not how West Ham progresses as a team and and as a club.”
Ok, different days and different times but this has never been the West Ham Way when our attitude was always to adopt a policy of “You get three and we will get four.” That in itself isn’t ideal but football – for all the strategic nonsense preached around it – is a simple game which is about scoring goals and unless we start pressing teams and COMBINING it with strong counter-attacking when required we will forever remain a mid table team.
It’s too soon by far to start calling for the manager’s head but he really does have to change his methodology or pay the price.
whilst i don’t necessarily disagree with Hugh in the above post , i do think that you can do all the defensive coaching in the world but if individual players in a defensive unit do not do their job or what you would reasonably expect them to do in their role then it’s going to fall apart a little and not really work properly . as for yesterday , Vlad seemed unaware of whatever was going on around him several times in the 1st half (whether that’s because he’s being left exposed by what’s on in front of him) , Mikey seemed desperate not to be out there and looked like a man on mission to be substituted , Lucas whilst giving it his all in the 1st half (although sometimes trying the near impossible) looked like he’d lost the will to live from 60 minutes onwards and Nayef doesn’t seem to be able to hold concentration for 90 minutes and always looks likely to give away a goal a game (shoves in the back by isak’s apart) so perhaps he’s really not up to the standard of the Premier League , but we currently are where we are and have only been beaten by teams in the current top 5 and who have been in good form when we’ve played them so let’s see what the next 5 games bring , but we certainly need to cut out the individual unforced errors (or performances) or at least not all in the same match and also hopefully keep not getting inconsistent official’s decisions that seem to plague games (if you are going to get it right , or wrong , then make sure you apply it to both teams and not just the unfavoured one – i.e. Emerson bookings as an example) anyways COYI
I wish you were right, but the trouble is I don’t think he can change his methodology. He just doesn’t have a mindset of expecting to win. And he instills that in the team. I think Villa’s rise may get some bumps in the road, but you could see their confidence and their determination to kill the game off, rather than just defend their lead, which is what Moyes wants from West Ham. At best he’s a punching above your weight kind of manager. And if we’re really going to advance he really has to go. And this is not me gunning for him after one bad result. It was clear to me last season. As David Sullivan said after the ECL win, it was a wonderful night and an awful season.
After 7 victories and only 7 defeats from a difficult opening set of fixtures, nobody can argue that we’ve anything but an excellent start to the season, added to which we’ve made some encouraging signings. Yesterday was very disappointing but I sense you’re still not learning from your past mistakes Hugh.
and you would be wrong. 12 goals in four games? Hmmm. I don’t call 9th excellent. I call it alright
After an opening nine games including 6 against the bookies top 9, and only 4 at home, I’m curious about where you were realistically hoping we’d sit in the league. A fairer assessment will be after the next 5 games. At that stage I agree we’d hope to be higher than 9th. In terms of playing style, I also agree that a tweak would be good, with probably the hard working but limited ability Soucek needing to be used less. We should be careful what we wish for though … after 18 months of Pellegrini’s progressive style we were in 19th.