A second successive home defeat sent West Ham tumbling to eighth place in the standings as the Championship table begins to sort itself out after Matchweek 13. The days of teams finding their feet and getting settled to a new environment are well behind us, and by the time the international break comes around next week, the season will be one-third completed.
Three teams currently trend above the two points per game (ppg) target typically required for automatic promotion (if you allow for Southampton’s four-point penalty). West Ham are not one of those teams. Instead, they are floundering on 1.69 ppg and might well be grateful that six teams make it into the play-offs nowadays rather than the usual four. Points wise, they are closer to the bottom half than to automatic promotion.
Saturday was another case of same old, same old from Nuno and the team. The usual pre-match platitudes followed by a handful of superficial changes to the starting eleven. Pablo and Austbo preferred to Taty and Solomon in like for like swaps at striker and left sided midfield. And Golambeckis replacing the absent Mavropanos in a move that surprised a lot of people. The excitement of a youngster given an opportunity tempered by the knowledge that it would be Kilman alongside him as mentor. Like taking flying lessons from a blind man. It may be hindsight, but moving Morato into the centre might have made more sense – given he’s certainly no left back.
Other than that, Nuno was not to be swayed from his stubborn insistence on the suitability of an archaic 4-4-2 formation. Or from the certainty that all shortcomings are the result of individual errors and not the system’s underlying flaws. On this occasion though he was facing an opponent setup in a similar fashion. Perhaps we wouldn’t be overrun in midfield for a change.
The question on most fan’s minds was whether it would be yet another slow start from the Hammers. The opening exchanges were encouraging but the energy that saw a corner won in the opening 30 seconds and an incisive Austbo run down the left ten minutes later eventually fizzled out into indifference.
A minor adjustment had been made to the West Ham press from the last successful Pablo and Kante outing at Swansea. Kante was dropping into deeper positions in the expectation that Bowen and Austbo would share pressing duties with Pablo. Fine in principle had it been well drilled, but in practice, it lacked a cohesion. Something that was fully apparent in the simplicity of the Baggies opening goal.
An Albion defender drew an initially reluctant Pablo towards him. One simple forward pass to a colleague in acres of space broke the press completely. From there, a further quick pass in the space between centre and left backs split the Hammers defence wide open. The attacker was free, worked out his angles and the rest, as they say, was geometry.
To their credit, the Hammers clawed themselves level within ten minutes. Kante getting the ‘assist’ credit with a smart pass to Bowen, but the goal was more the result of the skipper’s individual opportunism (and suspect positioning by the Albion keeper) than it was to West Ham carving open the Albion defence. A seventh league goal of the season for Bowen.
Level at the break was not a bad position to be in for a second half team. No need for half-time changes on this occasion. An inspirational dressing room team talk, and the three points would be as good as in the bag.
That illusion didn’t last long. Three minutes in, a cross is allowed to come in from the left, no defenders attack the ball, some stand and watch – and it is 1-2.
This time no rapid West Ham response is forthcoming. Attacks are symbolic; frequent touches in the opposition box but not a single big chance created. Nuno sets the random substitution generator into operation, but the game’s equilibrium is undisturbed.
On 72 minutes the outcome is assured. A corner from the left, keeper frozen to his line, opportunities to clear forsaken, a shot from the edge of the box evading Hermansen and settling into the back of the net. Game over.
It is often argued that West Ham have the strongest squad in the Championship. It’s a subjective claim and the table would beg to differ. What is almost certainly true, however, is that it is the most expensively assembled and highest paid. And with the highest paid manager in the division directing them.
Nuno is no newbie at West Ham. Someone still needing time to educate players in the intricacies of his revolutionary methods. He’s a veteran of over 50 games and still nobody can pick out any identity or personality in the way he wants or intends to play. If he understands it himself, he certainly hasn’t convinced the players. Trying the same thing over and over again and wondering why it fails so frequently is not a strategy.
The one mitigating factor is that recruitment at the London Stadium has a long history of lurching from haphazard and disjointed to expedient. A squad assembled with no direction or plan in mind. But it is the manager’s responsibility to get the best out of the resources available. Nuno is clearly not doing that – or even attempting to in some cases. While some notable aspects of the squad’s shortcomings require reinforcements, others already have better alternatives on the sidelines – but are snubbed due the manager’s thin-skinned ego. Nowhere is this more obvious than goalkeeper and defensive midfield.
There is a stat going around on the internet that since joining West Ham Hermansen has not finished a single match with a positive goals-prevented figure – calculated as the number of goals a keeper conceded to the number of goals they should have conceded based on the quality and placement of shots on target. How shocking is that? Essentially, Hermansen is about as effective as one of those tube men you see air dancing outside a discount furniture warehouse.
The rationale for his inclusion is that he is superior to Areola with the ball at his feet. Never mind this has little value in a team incapable of playing the ball through the lines and eventually resort to long balls anyway.
Saturday’s fixture provided an interesting contrast as to how each team executed their defensive midfield duties. The Albion pair were disciplined and patrolled diligently in front of their centre backs. At the other end, Engels and Mukasa were regularly drawn out to cover the full-backs leaving large open gaps through the centre. And this with a defence that needs all the protection it can get.
Neither Engels nor Mukasa are natural defensive midfielders. Engels should be deployed box to box; Mukasa further forward. The obvious solution (to me) would be to pair either Alvarez or Magassa with Engels and for Mukasa to be competing with Kante for the attacking midfield role.
I’m guessing Nuno has greater access to stats and heatmaps than those I can access for free on the internet – so all this should be no surprise to him. His failure to act can only be put down to the intransigence of a man whose decisions are taken for reasons of personal satisfaction rather than in the interests of West Ham United.
We can only speculate what the owners make of all this – assuming there is anyone paying attention to the day to day running of the club. What do they see when they look at Nuno – a competent leader capable of building for the future? Or the imposter lacking in tactical acumen, man management skills, motivation, match preparation and in-game decisions that the rest of us see?
Never in the history of “x games to save their job” has a manager ever truly turned things around. A temporary reprieve is the best it can get. Can anyone look at Nuno’s West Ham record and conclude he is fit for purpose – either for now or for the future. Nuno must go! Do the right thing board members, you know it makes sense. COYI!
