We only wing when were winning!

With the play-offs/automatic promotion and will we/won’t we in the balance, there has been a lacking ingredient. This ingredient would have tipped us (Great Escape Style) back onto the cliff and away to the Premier League. It appears very inconsistently but when it does, it has an effect so profound that the points are ours. The ingredient?

WIDTH

There has been an incessant need for each and every manager in recent years to flood our squad with central midfield players, ignoring our immediate concerns for diversity and width. Even the most staunch Hammer would agree that a successful squad must have balance and to have balance, we must have wide players.

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While watching Leicester I began making and reading comments on how Collison “Wasn’t what he used to be, pre injury” I even said “He just isn’t the same player” but I began thinking about it and what I should have been saying was “He just isn’t a wide player!” I firmly believe that Jack Collison summarises the biggest problem West Ham United have faced in the ‘yo yo’ years of late. Too many players out of position. Let me give you a few examples. Take this season for example; Ricardo Vaz Te who has been exceptional as a front three wide striker, has often found himself on the left wing in a 4-5-1 formation and Jack Collison as a right winger when he struggles to beat a man or cross the ball. Last season? Mark Noble played right midfield to accommodate Scott Parker and Radoslav Kovac (Sends shivers down my spine that one). I could go all day but instead I will list the players we have forced out wide over the recent years;

Joe Cole – CAM

Marc Vivien Foe – CDM

Freddi Kanoute – ST

Titi Camara – ST

Steve Lomas – DM

Tomas Repka – RB

David Bellion – ST

Luis Boa Morte – ST

Lee Bowyer – CM

Yossi Benayoun – CAM

Just a selection but it drives the point home that wide players have not been our priority and if you are debating the importance of wide players, how well do you think Real Madrid would play without Ronaldo, Man United without Valencia, Bayern without Robben? Just a brief look at the Premier League Assists chart tells it’s own story. In the top 20 you have Antonio Valencia, Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Jermaine Pennant, Chris Brunt, Matthew Etherington, Juan Mata, Luis Nani and Ashley Young. Would Blackburn Rovers have won the Premier League without arguably their most dangerous players Stuart Ripley and Jason Wilcox providing Shearer with his service? The link between quick, wide players and success is evident.

 

This season we were dominated twice by the eventual champions Reading. “Look at our squad compared to theirs!!” was heard before they beat us. Unfortunately football isn’t won on paper and the defeats showed us that we could not deal with a team who broke well with their quick wide players in Jimmy Kebe (who we failed to sign. If we had this blog would never have seen fruition) and Jobi McAnuff (ironically a West Ham cast off).

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The importance of a balanced team with quick, wide players who can deliver quality, pose a threat, and pull teams about is highly important in top level football. Sam Allardyce has shown that he likes a direct playing style, much to the anger of many, but if it works we’ll stick with him. Unfortunately for Allardyce it hasn’t worked every time and there has been little in the form of a ‘Plan B‘. The lack of creativity has been present for all but the blindest to see this season. Lack of creativity is often the result when forcing players to play outside of their comfort zone, or more accurately, out of position. What happened when Collison drifted inside to his natural position against Leicester? He rifled in the winner from 30 yards!

When things haven’t been working for Sam and with some hindsight, it would have been fantastic to switch up the playing style and throw on Rob Hall out wide to get at defenders, giving Carlton Cole the service in the box he needs. (From the by-line not the half way line!) The praise given to Gianfranco Zola as being the “Only Man” to get the best out of Carlton Cole is true enough but is it any coincidence that it was the same season we had Etherington down the left and Behrami down the right? Natural wide players? Both of whom are still notching assists in the top flight week in, week out?

At times we have been fantastic this season, we have controlled, dominated and passed our way through teams but the beauty of football is that there is no magic formula. Sometimes the beautiful passing game won’t cut it, sometimes you just have to give it the old hoof ball and sometimes you need that spark of brilliance out wide followed by a daisy splitting cross. The difference between the top teams and the also rans, is the diversity of a balanced squad played in their true positions. Regardless of what happens over the next few games, high priority needs to be given to bringing the balance for success.

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