Sam Allardyce was quick to praise Matt Jarvis following West Ham’s 2-0 win over Wigan Athletic in the Premier League last weekend, but few people can genuinely believe that the winger has been anything other than disappointing this season. While Jarvis may have improved in recent weeks, only continuing on this upward trajectory will be good enough for the Hammers record signing.
Are you on Facebook? Excellent, so are we http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/ForeverWestHamcom/200938616608282
Jarvis signed for West Ham from Wolverhampton Wanderers last August for a fee reported to be £10.75m, which includes over £2m in add-ons. At the time of signing, he said all the right things about playing representing West Ham, and that was despite starting out at Millwall as a schoolboy.
“I’m delighted to have signed,” he said. “It’s a fantastic club and I’m pleased to be here. It’s a great club and it’s got great history and tradition. I know about Bobby Moore and the history and tradition that go with that.
“I’ll be playing with some fantastic players and it’ll be great to get into training and I’m looking forward to playing with them. Hopefully I will add a bit of pace, crossing and deliveries that will provide some assists.”
“I’ve been told about how good the fans are hopefully they’ll get behind me and I can show them what I can do.
“It’ll be straight in and hit the ground running. There’s no time to think about it, you’ve just got to get on with it, which is good.”
As the player was happy to reel off the clichés, his new boss was also keen to talk Jarvis up to the West Ham faithful.
“From my point of view it is a big piece of business for a terrific young man who will add a lot of quality to our team,” Sam Allardyce said.
“Certainly from an attacking sense he is one of the best final-third crossers in the Premier League and his stats were very good at Wolverhampton Wanderers. He delivers in the business end of the field and creates a lot of chances and is a player that can give opposition defences an awful lot of trouble. We are hoping he will produce that for us.”
The problem is Jarvis failed to both “hit the ground running” and “give opposition defences an awful lot of trouble”. He did hit the ground, but sadly with a heavy thud as the flying winger was burdened with such a hefty price tag, the weight of which his wings of wax could not bear.
Jarvis still does not have an assist to his name for West Ham; a shameful fact for someone who Big Sam claimed “creates a lot of chances”. Furthermore, although he has never been a prolific goalscorer, it is worth noting that Jarvis has scored just two goals while wearing the claret and blue – the second being the fluky cross-come-shot that looped over West Ham’s attack and Wigan’s defence before sneaking into the net on Saturday.
When taking this into consideration, it becomes difficult to understand how Allardyce could be so effusive in his praise of Jarvis after that game.
“Matt Jarvis has been outstanding,” he said. “He has the best crossing stats in the Premier League and not in just terms of quantity but the regular quality. So it shows what a valuable player he has been for us this season. He’s going to run to the opposition’s box, do his tricks and nine times out of ten he’s going to produce a cross. It’s a huge, huge asset for us, when you’ve got a player who can hang onto the ball as long as he can.”
But, according to the football stats website www.WhoScored.com, only 52 of the 197 crosses Jarvis has delivered this season have been accurate. That gives him an average of 1.8 accurate crosses per game, which makes him the ninth best crosser of the ball in the Premier League at the moment, behind the likes of Leighton Baines, Jonathan De Guzman, Gareth Bale, and more.
Forever West Ham is now on Google+, so be sure to find us on there by quite simply (and rather unsurprisingly) searching ‘Forever West Ham’
I’m sure Allardyce has a team of people feeding him more accurate information than the figures I have just quoted though. Big Sam is, after all, famed for his obsession with the quantitative side of football analysis. But, until the West Ham boss produces solid evidence that proves Matt Jarvis is all he claims him to be, the fans are entitled to question the player’s ability.
Once it cannot be doubted that Jarvis is doing his job as he should, the finger of blame should be pointed elsewhere – something Allardyce appeared keen to get on with right away after the Wigan match, when he was discussing West Ham’s inability to convert their chances this season – chances Jarvis could have created.
“I’ve been jumping on the back of that with Andy Carroll, Kevin Nolan, (Ricardo) Vaz Te, Joe Cole, Jack Collison and people like that and saying ‘you should be getting more goals’, because we’ve been short of goals,” he said.
“He [Jarvis] has provided the opportunities to score and we haven’t been taking them. He’s been an outstanding player. He also relieves pressure. You give the ball to Matt Jarvis and he takes it from where he is and runs up the field at the right back, gets into the final third of the field before the right back can stop him.”
No doubt Jarvis has been better of late. But, no matter how excellent Sam Allardyce claims West Ham’s number seven to be, unless the winger continues to build upon his recent improvement and creates some goals, West Ham supporters can only view his first season at the club as a waste of money. Hopefully he can end the season on a high and carry that with him into the Hammers’ next Premier League campaign.
Follow me on Twitter: @JoellBlogs
Looking for experience? Just want to be heard outside of the Boleyn? We are currently looking for writers, drop us an email at foreverwestham@snack-media.com for more details
Matt Jarvis gives more than AC has & will ever do! Yes Matt is getting better all the time & he deserves more credit!
Jarvis hopefully will never end up in the Sam/Nolan clique!
Jarvis got assists vs liverpool and chelsea…. Also there have been quite a few times where his cross has been knocked on e.g jarvis to carroll to vaz te = goal Therefore that goes down as carrolls assist. Also accurate cross means someone on our team needs to get on the end of it, ive seen him hit some quality crosses all season just nobody there to attack them. Jarvis has been quite good in my opinion all season and his price tag is the reason you think hes been dissapointing. he we bought him for 3 million you would be saying what a marvelous piece of business. Why he wasnt worth the 7.5 mill we paid for him YET he has still been a good player for us and will only get better.
spot on mate..! im sick of fans criticizing him because he’s cost us 10million, they clearly dont know what they’re talking about. in my opinion it was money well spent, because there arent many wingers nowdays who can actually beat their man everytime and put in good crosses like he does. ive seen him put several blinding crosses into the box all season, sometimes theres noone attacking them. against chelsea i remember andy carroll heading two great chances over the bar.. and it was jarvis who created both out of nothing. he’s the best winger we’ve had since matty etherington, and i hope he carrys on the good work
I think hes done ok, first season with the team and is still improving i think its an unstable team as it is with players in and out all season its hard to gel when its so inconsistent, he will get there once he has good players that are constantly around him.
Is this article a late April fools joke ????????? Whoever penned this nonsense knows nothing about wing play, and is unable to recognise a quality winger when he sees one. Matt Jarvis does EXACTLY what hes paid to do…cross the ball. He does it regularly and accurately from all angles and with either foot. For the second Prem season running Jarvis has put more balls into the box than anyone else, and more QUALITY balls in than anyone else. Whats he supposed to do then…sprint into the box and finish as well ??? If the ball isnt ending up in the back of the net thats another issue. Matt Jarvis has done his bit and hes done it bloody well. Get off the guys back and look at where the real problem is…Nolan playing every bloody week , and a lack of cohesive forward play.
@JoellBlogs
I’ve only got two words for you “terrible article”
Jarvis has done well and will get even better in my opinion!
It’s good to see that this one has gone down well…
While I am actually happy to see people disagreeing with me about this and being vocal in their praise of a West Ham player – a worryingly rare thing this season – I can’t help but think most of you have taken Big Sam’s claim about Jarvis’s crossing as gospel without questioning whether he is telling the truth and why he would even say it in the first place.
Yes, the forwards have been disappointing this season and should have finished chances better, but that is an old argument that has raged on all season. So I thought you might appreciate seeing the team’s shortcomings from a different perspective. I was, quite clearly, wrong to think that.
Jarvis has been excellent recently. But a few good weeks at the end of the season is not good enough for our most expensive player ever. I’m hung up on that because West Ham are still massively in debt and can’t afford to pay silly money for players that take ages to get going.
I maintain that he needs to carry on playing well and getting better. And I think he will.
I repeat what I say above + I don’t listen to what BFS says. I still want him out of the club. As others have said hes a proper winger. Runs past people, is quick and gets a cross in almost every time. I have watched every single game this season unlike you clearly. The big probem in our team is nolan, not jarvis,
But the fact remains that he has not got an assist and has only scored two (jammy) goals. That’s not good enough for a player that cost nearly £11m and is supposed to create.
You’re right though, I haven’t managed to catch every minute of action this season. Shameful, I know. Congratulations to you for being a ‘proper fan’.
so are you saying if he cost us £500,000 or 1M.. you would be happy with his performances ? he cant help how much clubs pay for him, all he can do is play the way he has done his whole career, and do what sam tells him to do.. if we paid 20million or 30million for him, he cant just turn into a world class player overnight because of his price tag !!!
and you cant critisise him for not getting any assists .. if players miss chances, what can he do about that ?? and he hasnt scored any goals because he NEVER gets any good opportunities to score.. (apart from his miss against west brom)
do you remember luis boa morte ? maybe we should bring players like that back to the club if your not happy with jarvis eh ?
That’s just crazy talk, I was as glad as anyone to see the back of Boa Morte.
You are right, the player doesn’t set his transfer fee, his club does, but has anyone said Torres can’t be blamed for costing Chelsea £50m and being a flop? No. He continues to get slated by everyone week in, week out.
Jarvis is similar to that but on a much, much smaller scale, both in terms of his valuation and in that he hasn’t performed as badly.
In fact, I agree that he has done well; just not as well as he should have.
My problem with BFS isnt that he apparently plays ‘long ball’ , it’s that he is so bloody negative away from home ! . IMO, we have done ok, but I want BFS out too. Talking Jarvis though, I think he has done pretty well. As for Nolan I think ppl ar a bit OTT . He has been a fantastic captain for WHU! Yes he is getting slower and perhaps its time for him to share the role with JC, who’s legs have gone too, lol. But please get off the guys back. Finally, IMHO and with hindsight we should never have got rid of Zola . DD.