West Ham’s Improvements For Next Season

I would like to start by saying what a fantastic season it has been for West Ham in their 2012/13 Premier League campaign and I have seen some very exciting stuff from them this season. However, with a team like West Ham, there is always room for improvement.

I believe that one thing we need to majorly improve on is our away form. This season our away form has been shocking. We have only won three games on our travels and we have only gained thirteen points away from home all season. Another very worrying sight is that we have only scored eleven goals away from home all season, which is the worst in the Premier League. It’s a good job our home form has been really good.

West Ham also need to try and improve on the timing of when we concede goals. Now I’m not saying this is going to be easy because when you come up against the top teams with world class players then sometimes these things just happen. But we have conceded a hell of a lot of goals this season in the first fifteen minutes of games. There is nothing worse than going 1-0 down early on as it just making the task of winning much more difficult.  So I would say trying to be stronger in the first twenty minutes is something we need to improve on.

We also need to improve as a team. With the transfer window approaching, we need to make sure that we get the right players in. I think the positions we need to improve in are: GK, RB, LB, RM. Jussi has been great this season and has gone from strength to strength as the season has gone on but if we did keep him, it should only be for one more year. Demel and O’Brien have put in a great shift this season but if we want to progress and become a better team, we need to recruit in those positions and finally we need a RM. Vaz Te has played there majority of the time this season but for me he is too inconsistent. I would like to see us get some quick players as well as we are quite a slow side.

West Ham also need to improve on getting the ball out to the wingers quickly and getting more crosses in from wide positions. I see a lot of Collins playing it long to Carroll but when this happens they can just put both of their centre backs on Carroll but if we get the ball out the our wide men then we can draw players in which will give Carroll more of a chance to score. I remember when we played QPR at home, Jarvis had a field day and was constantly putting balls into the box and if they didn’t have Cesar we would have scored six or seven. So we need to try and get more deliveries in from the wide areas.

The final thing we need to improve on is consistency. Generally, our season has been, win, lose, win, lose and so on. Now I’m not saying that I’m expecting us to go on some ten game unbeaten run but I think if we want to push on and finish even higher next season then we will need to be more consistent because that’s what makes players play better, especially when your not losing as many games.