There’s a pattern forming here isn’t there? Once again and for the fourth time in 10 Premier League games this season a West Ham United game has ended 0-0. Saturday’s game against Aston Villa saw the Hammers dominate for large periods, play some lovely football but alas it was all filler and no killer.
This Hammers team are fantastic defensively; Winston Reid and James Tomkins have formed an incredible partnership that isn’t getting the recognition and credit it deserves outside of the Boleyn. West Ham’s midfield options are fantastic; even though the game ended 0-0 it was a joy to watch at times to see the likes of Ravel Morrison, Stewart Downing and Matt Jarvis run at Villa’s defence mercilessly and put them under constant pressure and a special mention for Mark Noble who was absolutely magnificent in the way he dictated the game for the Hammers for long periods.
The big problem for Sam Allardyce’s Irons is that as solid as they are defensively and despite all the wonderful midfield options at their disposal, up front they’re powder-puff. It tells you everything that you need to know about West Ham’s current options up top that Big Sam would rather play with no striker than Modibo Maiga or Carlton Cole; at least Carlton has the excuse of not yet being fully fit, Maiga is simply too blunt a weapon to use in this harsh and unforgiving league.
If the game against Villa was a boxing match West Ham would’ve won on points but without ever really threatening to knock out their opponent; for all the possession, crosses and pretty passing Villa were simply able to soak up everything the Hammers had to offer and almost won via Christian Benteke’s sucker punch which thundered off the bar with mere minutes to go.
West Ham’s goal-scoring problems don’t have an obvious answer; Andy Carroll simply won’t be fit enough to throw in until December at the earliest as he didn’t have a pre-season and has tonnes of work to do fitness wise when he’s finally recovered from his injury. So whether it’s a 4-6-0 or with Cole, Maiga or Petric leading the line the Hammers have got to start putting their opponents to the sword; starting away to a Norwich team thumped 7-0 by Manchester City…last season’s corresponding fixture ended 0-0 a score line which is simply becoming too familiar for the Irons.
Signing players with on going injury problems and spending the transfer budget on that 1 player,was going to bite sam in the backside.
I much prefer the recent games even Citeh where we were able to string many passes together rather than our previous efforts. We have only been playing this system for a few matches so I expect us to get better in converting the chances.
As for the transfer business, our only mistake was not moving quicker to secure someone once AC got knobbled. Don’t regret buying him and hindsight is always 20/20
Also, Downing is proving to be one of our better players so that was a good piece of business.
How did BFS hope to score goals by playing his brown-noser sidekick as our lone striker for 70% of the Aston Villa game. It would have made a lot more sense (if we have to accept his ridiculous hoof the ball up and hope to find our lone ‘needle in a haystack’ striker) to play Morrison up front and BFS’s has-been in the middle. Better still – play Diame and let Nolan warm the bench. BFS and KN have to go.
Watch Defoe ITV4 tomorrow 10pm.