The formation West Ham should play

Now, I like to think of myself as a bit of whizz on the popular simulated football manager game, Football Manager 2014, having taken PSV to back to back-to-back league titles and to the semi-finals of the Champions League. Now that bragging is out of the way, I shall get on with the point of the article.

It is often thought that, with the squad we have at the minute, forces Sam Allardyce and West Ham to be somewhat one-dimensional. Knock it long, Andy Carroll flick on to either Kevin Nolan or the wide players and get an attempt off at goal, via either a cross into the box or a Nolan effort.

This could of course be changed, simply by rejigging the formation around; the team will not include those players out on loan, so no Ravel Morrison who would of course be in my team in a heartbeat.

A lot of people will say that at times Nolan is a key player and the statistics do back that up with our captain comfortably out top goal scorer with seven goals. But the former Newcastle United and Bolton Wanderers man misses out in my new formation. I shall of course explain after I have shown the formation why that is.

The back five is fairly self-explanatory, I feel that Joey O’Brien gives us the perfect balance of attack and defence for that is why he is ahead of Geroge McCartney and Pablo Armero so that would be the only change from the current back five.

Where the main change happens is in the midfield, I have decided to drop Nolan, as it forces the Hammers to play a different game, the temptation is far too easy for the Irons to knock it long from the back to allow Carroll to try to flick it to his mate Kev. By dropping captain Kev it forces us to play it wide and get it to the by-line before delivering a ball into the box.

It riles me when players and managers of the opposition say: “you know what you’re going to get with West Ham”. Now by doing this it gives us the option of mixing it up, by deploying Matt Taylor at CDM it allows Mohamed Diame and Mark Noble to have more freedom and allows them to break forward. Taylor’s role would be to just sit and hold, get his foot and release the ball.

Bringing Ricardo Vaz Te in allows us to be more offensive on the break; his pace would give us an option on the attacking front. Ricardo picking up the pieces on a Andy Carroll flick on would be a far more attractive proposition than watching Matt Jarvis picking it up. Vaz Te is quick direct and can finish with aplomb, and of course Vaz Te could lurk at the back stick when Downing whips the ball in to give us another strong player in the air should the ball miss Carroll.

Now a lot of you will be calling for me to put two up top, but I’ll ask you one question, who plays two up front nowadays? 4-4-2 as a formation is dying out. Off the top of my head, only Hull City play two up front now, and that only works with the clever players, Cole and Carroll up top would be a bloody disaster as we have seen plenty of times this season. Cole and Carroll just get in each other’s way and the ball is easily cleared by defenders who prepare themselves for a number of missiles coming into the box.

If the game is going all Pete Tong with that formation you could bring off Taylor and bring on Nolan and play him CAM. He would be fresher and more dangerous, there is no doubting he is a solid finisher and he could grab us a crucial goal or two.

So there you have it, there are my views, I’m sure there are plenty of people who will disagree. Send me your views to @Bowdenwhu on Twitter or comment below.

Come on you Irons!