Tuesday night, as well as witnessing a disastrous result against the Championship’s basement boys in Bristol City, we also lost Winston Reid to a suspected dislocated shoulder, so that now leaves us with two recognised centre-half’s in Faye and Tomkins.
Anyone out there seen Guy Demel? The Ivorian right-back signed on the last day of the transfer window hasn’t been seen since, with the club offering very little in the way of just when our Guy will be ready for first team action.
We’re losing goals too easily and it’s already cost us this season; we should have got a draw out of the Cardiff and Ipswich games at the very least and we should’ve beaten Leeds; but in all three of the aforementioned games we fell victim to the sucker punch that is the last gasp equaliser/winner.
In this league with the firepower we’ve got we’re always going to score goals, our weakness lies at the back; where we seem to leave our chin unguarded and left open to what in many cases is the hit and hope.
We do possess however centre half’s more than good enough for this league; I dare say Faye, Tomkins and Reid would walk into any starting eleven in this seasons Championship. Perhaps it’s more of a mentality thing? Over the last few years we’ve conceded many a late goal, culminating in Charles N’Zogbia’s last second winner for Wigan that sent us hurtling into this league.
Big Sam’s sides over the years have persistently been miserly at the back, perhaps it’s just a case of giving Allardyce time to change the DNA of this West Ham side from ‘perennial losers’ to ‘They shall not pass.’ The injury to Reid could prove costly though as we now only have two recognised senior central defenders available at a time where we want to avoid more situations like Leicester/Pompey; in each of those games we needed 3 and 4 goals respectively just to quell both sides’ relentless resistance.
I think due to the very nature of this league in that the bottom placed team can still get a result against a side at the top (case in point last night at the Boleyn) teams tend to give up far less easily than they do in the Premier League, we must be on guard against this or else we could be needing to score 4/5 just to break the spirit of those who come to Upton Park and treat the occasion as their day in the sun.
