1. West Ham’s just cannot win away
Aston Villa had not won a league game at home for over two months until West Ham turned up. If there was ever a good time to play the Birmingham side at Villa Park, Sunday was it.
West Ham, though, failed to capitalise on Villa’s poor form and succumbed to yet another away defeat.
The Hammers have not won a game on the road since their 1-0 victory over Newcastle United on 11th November.
The next three away fixtures for West Ham are Stoke City, Chelsea and Liverpool – three clubs who are notorious for making their home grounds fortresses.
So, with defeat almost guaranteed for West Ham in those games, the Hammers must instead hope to get points at home.
But, with tough fixtures against Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and West Bromwich Albion coming up, there is no saying where Sam Allardyce’s men will be able to get the points the team need to secure their Premier League status for another season.
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- 2. West Ham are the least predictable team in England
When West Ham played Swansea City in their previous fixture before the Villa game, the Swans were undefeated in their last seven league games and brimming with confidence. West Ham, on the other hand, had not won a game in their last 11 outings in all competitions.
As it was, the Hammers knuckled down and got a deserved victory over Michael Laudrup’s side. To then go and lose to Villa – a team that have been awful of late – is typical of West Ham, who have become the coupon killers of the Premier League.
- 3. James Tomkins is improving with every game he plays
Tomkins played exceptionally well against Villa. He was successful in all of the tackles he attempted and looked strong throughout the game.
With that performance, the 23-year-old centre-back appears to have recaptured the excellent form he displayed regularly last season, and this can only be attributed to him being given the chance to shine alongside Winston Reid due to James Collins’ injury.
Big Sam will have a difficult decision to make when Collins becomes available for selection again.
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- 4. 3-5-2 could be the way forward for West Ham
West Ham started off in a 3-6-1 formation against Villa. Tomkins, Reid and Emanuel Pogatetz formed the defensive three and Joey O’Brien and Matt Taylor played as wing-backs. The six-man midfield was completed by Mark Noble, Mohamed Diame, Kevin Nolan and Joe Cole. Andy Carroll was up front.
While the Hammers did not set the world alight in this setup, a slight alteration to 3-5-2 could give the side all they need to cure some of the ailments they are suffering from.
First of all, 3-5-2 would solve the centre-back debate that has raged on since West Ham signed James Collins from Villa in the summer. Collins, Reid and Tomkins all in the same line-up should sure up the West Ham defence, which has become awfully leaky of late.
To operate in a 3-5-2, Allardyce would be forced to make a crucial decision about his team, specifically Kevin Nolan’s inclusion in it. The captain has frustrated almost all West Ham fans with his disappointing displays recently and a change in tactics would give Big Sam a good excuse to leave Nolan out of his starting line-up, replacing him with Joe Cole in the attacking midfielder role instead.
But the main argument for 3-5-2 concerns West Ham’s lack of goals and their consequential need for more fire-power up top.
When Carlton Cole came on for Noble in the 76th minute, West Ham finally took it upon themselves to go for the win, having gone 1-0 down not long before.
If Cole was to have started alongside Andy Carroll against Villa and been able to give the big Geordie the support he needed, we could have witnessed an entirely different football match.
- 5. The spirit of the Hammers fans is tough to crack
On a bitterly cold and rainy day in Birmingham, the spirit of the claret and blue army was the only thing that actually offered any joy. The match itself was, after all, absolutely terrible.
Even with their side lacking any desire to win a game that was there for the taking, the West Ham faithful were in full voice as they tried desperately to inspire the Hammers players to victory.
While a win was not to be, the fans showed exactly why West Ham are not simply West Ham, but are West Ham United.
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Three at the back leaves us far too vulnerable on the flanks & I can’t believe anyone would advocate playing CC up front at the moment!!
Absolutely nothing we didnt know already…Nolan is a passenger and leaves us with ten men every time he plays, we have one way to play, YES LONG BALL and if it doesnt work we are stuffed, we are a one paced team who take an age to build up and generally have nothing at the end of things,hence the one of the worst scoring records in the entire football pyramid, we are negative in our line up and approach until in desperation we chase the game and stick more attacking options on, and last but not least,bit for me most worryingly, apparently Big Sam cant believe we lost against Villa having dominated play and chances ??????? I saw the game in its entirety. Villa looked sharper, hungrier, more threatening going forward and were always the team looking more likely to win the game. I may be a Hammer of over 50 years standing, but at least I have the grace to admit it when we get what we deserve. We will probably stay up, but only just, and if we take away the good start we made, we could easily be looking ata bottom three slot now. COYI !!
We got exactly what we deserved from the Villa game – sod all. We were negative in all departments. Winnie was the only hammer to show some guts. If CC had jumped two inches then the free kick would have come back out or sailed over for a corner. He wasn’t even looking at the ball. He was standing with his chin tucked into his chest & had no idea of what was going on ’til the ball was in the net. Talk about no guts. As for Jussi’s attempt to save it – I don’t even want to go there. If Mark Noble plays any slower, then he’ll be walking. He amazes me how he gets in the team each week with his lack of pace & inability to read the game. He did nothing but give the ball away in dangerous areas, culminating in the late tackle for the penalty. If that tackle was any later, the guy would’ve been two yards past him. To sum it up – we were crap.
Could not agree more with the majority of points here. Starting with a defensive formation against a team of kids in the bottom 3 shot of all confidence, ridiculous. For me, we should have gone there with the opposite tactic and torn into them from the start getting a couple of goals lead and then defending that, or maybe go on to destroy them. This was so dissapointing and we should now be safe, instead we are still in a fight to stay up baring in mind our next 6 fixtures are as tough as they get. So negative and Spence55 is right, thank god we got the good start to the season otherwise we would be buggered now and giving QPR a run for their money for bottom spot. Luckily we will probably be okay, but it is not enjoyable to watch. Big Sam has done a good job, but how can he stand there saying we dominated??? Was he watching a different game to everyone else. 4 shots at goal (2 of which in the last 2 minutes when we are chasing) does not indicate to me that we dominated. I had all the time in the world for Allardyce this season, but that is quickly waining after a a terrible performance. How can you expect to win a game when you don’t decide to attack with any force until you are losing. As soon as we threw on more attacking options Villa looked how their form suggests. Frail, if only we had started like that.
We looked like a team that came with a”Not to
Lose” set up, not a team that came to win. That has been the problem all season, and the tactics stem from the Manager. When we play away we adopt a Not to Lose set up and we only have an Option A route one, long ball and hope for the best. Another issue is that we appear to be slower than anyone else, is this due to leaving everthing on the training ground?
Confidence seems to be disappearing from some players and that has become apparent.
Playing 3 at the back leaves us vulnerable to balls down each flank, e.g. Aston Villa.
However, if we were to play 3-5-2 then the 2 wide men must track back to defend. So in attack we go 3-5-2, and when defending 5-5 with the front two dropping in to the middle and two of the middle 5 dropping back. The issue here is the ball would have to be played on the floor from defence and then wide to come back in again.
The question is who do we have that could handle it?
Well lets look at possibles:
Goalkeeper: Jasskelainen (Hopefully a different goalkeeper)
The back 3 Reid, Tomkins, Pogatetz,
The middle 5: Taylor or (Mcartney) Collinson, Diame, nnnn, O’Brien
The Front 2: Carroll, or Chamakh with either Wellington, Cole
It’s just a thought as my feeling is that it could not be any worse than the way we play at the moment.
IMO unless we do something then we could struggle to get enough points to stay in the PL.
next time someone should tell the players in the wall that they are allowed to jump when a player takes a free kick against them…