At the beginning of the season Ricardo Vaz Te went from the hero, whose goal got West Ham United back into the Barclays Premier League, to the man who couldn’t really do a lot right.
At times he has left me fuming in the stands with his lack of work rate and seemingly lacklustre performances, however after a long time out of the team, against West Bromwich Albion I saw one or two moments of brilliance which makes me wonder, could Vaz Te show the form which made him one of our main men in the Championship and regain a permanent place in the starting line up?
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With only one goal in eleven starts this season, it is clear to say that Ricardo Vaz Te hasn’t been anywhere near as prolific as he was last season, and a lot of times this season he has looked very low on confidence, often wanting to pass the ball off rather than running with it, and it was almost like he felt a bit daunted leaving the Championship where he had been so prolific and going into the Premier League where he didn’t get much success on a personal level with Bolton Wanderers.
Another thing that may have affected his performance is the fact that he has pushed out of position to the right wing rather than being the striker as he was last year for both West Ham and Barnsley and this may have knocked him further, as he was no longer the main focal point of the attack.
However I think that he may have got over all of this, as the game after the international break, which would have allowed him to lay more of a claim in training, he was the man who was picked to play on the right wing and this may have given him a bit of a boost, as he went from a man who during the warm up would stay on his own and kicking the ball into an empty net to being buzzing around with everybody else.
When you add to this the way that he was willing to run at the team a lot more, worked a lot harder and the massive part that he played in Gary O’Neil’s goal, I find it exciting and feel that we could be getting the old Vaz Te back.
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Although one game is a too little to go by, if he continues to play like this then I feel that we could have our great threat back and in a run in, that we need one or two more wins, having everybody on top of their game, especially players with attacking quality, could be vital and it would be a great addition to the cause if we could have Ricardo Vaz Te back to his best, and I can’t help but hope that this could be the time that he gets back into the starting line-up. I think that maybe if Joe Cole was moved into the middle and an in form Vaz Te was playing on the right with Matt Jarvis on the left and Andy Carroll was put upfront, then we could have a very big attacking threat.
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Sorry dont agree,played well last year,but that was his level
Not at all convinced im afraid. One swallow does not a summer make as they say. Give us 20 committed and fruitful (i.e goals or assists or running at defences causing havoc) games on the spin than I may be forced to change my opinion. I just suspect that he lacks that tiny bit extra that makes run of the mill players into good or great players.
He played his best game for us this year away at stoke ..but played by default due to injuries! I think he is one of our most skillfull players but i think he is lazy, something that will never change!! Ive not once seen him chase a ball down after losing possesion and thats not good enough if your going to wear our shirt unfortunatly!