West Ham secured another valuable three points on Saturday against Peterborough, courtesy of a Mark Noble penalty. From what I have seen of the highlights, it seemed a very unconvincing win to put it kindly, with both teams not shooting enough at goal.
Sam Allardyce said after the match: “I think the only disappointment we had today was the fact that our approach play and the opportunity to deliver more goals failed us,” he went on to add: “We have had to rely on a penalty to win us the game today and that is the only disappointment, everything else went to plan.”
It’s a shame The Hammers had to rely on a penalty to beat the Posh, who in all honest have an average defence. It would be nice if we could play every match to the absolute maximum, but over a 46 game league season, that’s just not going to happen.
I think West Ham fans will agree with me that when we played so unconvincingly last season, they lost the match, or at least conceded a goal. On Saturday neither of these happened, showing the defence and character in the squad is much improved.
Saturday showed that my high hopes for this team, aren’t wide of the mark. Yes, the performance was mediocre but West Ham won having not been playing at their best, which can really stand in good stead for the rest of the season
West Ham’s formation at home may have been the reason there was a lack of goalmouth action on Saturday. Big Sam has been playing 4-5-1 most of the season and has worked well so far, with only one game lost in the league, on the opening day vs Cardiff.
Away from home, 4-5-1 has been working very well. But at home, the home team must show the initiative, hence why we should play 4-4-2. From the highlights I watched, there wasn’t enough players arriving in the box on Saturday, hopefully playing 4-4-2 could solve this.
As I finish writing this, my beloved Hammers have just conceded an 89th minute goal to Ipswich, perhaps the unconvincing win is the least of our worries, and my high hopes are only always going to be exactly that ‘hopes’.
