I’ll begin this article by referring you to Geoff’s excellent Monday briefing this week. It says it all really. Perhaps I can try to cheer you up?
Is the game against Crystal Palace a ‘must-win’ for Graham Potter? The pressure is surely building. West Ham have suffered league defeats to Chelsea, Tottenham and Sunderland to start the 2025/26 season; We have conceded the most goals (11), the most goals from set pieces (6) with all six arriving from corners. We have the worst goal difference (-7) equal with pointless Wolves, the biggest differential of goals conceded versus expected goals conceded (xGA) and sit eighteenth in the table. It’s not yet a relegation struggle but early indicators suggest that it may soon become one. Having said that one win could propel us into the top half of the table! But can we win this Saturday?
Derby defeats to Chelsea and Tottenham never go down well especially at home. But somehow they might have been bearable if we had been in the game and not capitulated once falling behind. Once Chelsea went 2-1 up, and after the second-half whistle went against Tottenham, we crumbled under the pressure. It didn’t take a lot for us to collapse. The 3-0 loss to newly-promoted Sunderland was the same after the first goal was conceded. A similar defeat to Crystal Palaceat the London Stadium on Saturday will be hard for us to take.
The manager’s record since arrival makes poor reading. It is in the Avram Grant area when it comes to winning matches. It’s eleven home games in the league, two wins, eleven away games in the league, four wins. As a manager Potter has faced Palace ten times and beaten them twice (4 defeats 4 draws). He says that everyone at the club is singing from the same hymn sheet. It’s just a shame that instead of singing ‘The Mighty Fortress Is Our God’ our keeper and defenders are singing ‘When I Survey The Wondrous Cross’.
One piece of nonsense I’ve read in the past week is saying that our keeper Mads is too small at 6ft 1.3ins. The tallest Premier League keeper is Nick Pope at around 6ft 5ins and most of the keepers are within an inch or two of Hermansen. In fact two Premier League keepers are shorter than Mads, they are Jordan Pickford and David Raya, and they do rather a good job and can command their areas well. I’m sure Mads is probably a decent shot stopper. He needs to be coached properly and convinced that he is allowed to leave his line and not leave it to our zonal marking defenders to try to win crosses that are landing within a couple of yards of the goal line.
Earlier I wrote about our abysmal record of conceding goals from corners (6 in just 4 games). We also have a big lead in conceding corners this season (32 in the four games). Every club (other than us!) seems to have analysts who have worked out our achilles heel. Ironically Palace have won fewer corners than all the other teams and are currently bottom of the league for winning them. If they have done their homework I reckon they’ll be moving swiftly up that particular table by Saturday evening.
Do you fancy some more positive statistics? Overall in history we have beaten Palace more times than they have beaten us. But if we take a look at the last three seasons in isolation then in the six games played we have lost four of them, winning just once, the 2-0 victory at Selhurst Park last season when Palace began the season very poorly.
Let’s broaden it a little and take the last six seasons into consideration. We have beaten Palace three times in those 12 games, all victories in South London. But we haven’t beaten them in the last six home games against them. That’s right you have to go back to December 2018 for the last time we collected three points against them at the London Stadium. Snodgrass, Hernandez and Anderson were our scorers in a 3-2 win that day. Of all the players on duty that day either in the starting eleven or on the bench only two could possibly be playing this Saturday. Fabianski was in goal for West Ham – could he make a return after he left the club in the summer? The other one was Wan-Bissaka who was playing for Palace that day but is supposedly not available for the game.
Let’s try a different tack and look at our recent form against all teams at the London Stadium. We haven’t won any of our last seven home Premier League games. The last three have been awful; we have lost them all scoring just twice and conceding ten. The last time we lost four home league games in a row Manuel Pellegrini was the manager. He never managed another game for us at the London Stadium. There’s a warning for you Mr. Potter.
Let’s look at Palace’s form away from home now. They have lost just two of their last seventeen away Premier League matches keeping nine clean sheets in their previous 15 on the road. Their previous nine away clean sheets beforehand came over a spell of 51 games. They have been very formidable on their travels.
All these statistics don’t make for good reading do they? Some questions in my mind as I write this. How did Kilman cost £40 million? How did Todibo cost £35 million? Will Brighton’s sixth choice Brazilian centre back on loan with us turn out to be an improvement on our other much costlier centre backs? Who will play in goal, Hermansen, Areola or Fabianski? I reckon Hermansen will keep his place. What has happened to Wan-Bissaka this season? How many corners will Palace get? Have we worked out how to deal with them? How many of my predicted ten outfield players will start the game? They are: Walker-Peters, Julio, Kilman, Diouf, Paqueta, Magassa, Fernandes, Bowen, Summerville, Wilson. There are some others I’d like to see given more minutes – Guilherme, Potts and Irving are three of them.
Do you think we can turn things around?
Under The Hammers 