Opinion from the stands

Where will West Ham’s biggest threat lie next season?

|
Image for Where will West Ham’s biggest threat lie next season?

Diafra Sakho Aaron Cresswell

There was no need to get our knickers in a twist after Thursday night’s narrow 1-0 win over Maltese minnows Birkirkara.

It wasn’t a good performance at all but we all have to bear in mind that almost all of the lads had not had a full 90 minutes under their belts yet in pre-season, so it was bound to be a bit sluggish and frustrating at times.

The one thing that did strike me in that first leg though was our lack creativity in the final third and goal scoring threat within the group of players that took the field.

I know that we have Sakho, Valencia and Carroll to come into the side up front and are looking at bringing in another striker but with Stewart Downing having left the club in the week to return to Middlesbrough, a huge amount of the creative responsibility is going to rest on the shoulders of our new signing Dimitri Payet.

Obiang and Kouyate are excellent box to box midfielders but I wouldn’t be expecting them to create too much or score a large amount of goals. Jarvis has not shown he is good enough for a top half Premier League team over his three years at the club and cannot be relied upon to produce what is needed.

Mauro Zarate shows glimpses of magic and is certainly worth looking at throughout pre-season for Slaven Bilic, before making a decision on him by mid-August. The jury is certainly still out on the Argentine for the moment though.

I was very disappointed to see the sale of Downing last week. We needed his experience and some people have forgotten how good he was during the first half of last season. You know you are going to get solid displays from him but now he has gone Payet suddenly has no time to settle in to life in the Premier League.

Payet has to come into the side and hit the ground running and that is exactly what he did yesterday, with a fine individual performance at Southend contributing two excellent goals and an assist. If that was anything to go by he will do the business in the Premier League too such is his obvious quality and it was a relief to see to be honest because you never know how a player will get on when coming over from a foreign league. How can you explain why such a great player like Juan Sebastian Veron couldn’t settle in the Premier League years ago?

Anyway, just like the Birkirkara game, there is no need to go over-board about things at this stage, especially a friendly with Southend but it is clear that Payet is going to be crucial to how this West Ham team does this season.

I think that the 4-4-2 midfield diamond formation best suits our players on most occasions, rather than the 4-2-3-1 system that Bilic played against Birkirkara and I think that he might realise that before the start of the Premier League season. Morgan Amalfitano suits a more central role rather being out wide and Payet should become our most threatening player at the top of the diamond behind a front two.

He has two feet, can produce the killer ball in the final third as you can see from the Southend game highlights on the official site, he can find the back of the net too. The French international can cross well when he gets wide and thrives centrally as well, so let him play in a position  where he can pop up anywhere.

There is no doubt the squad has a very solid look about it but I do hope we are in the market for another creative/goal scoring midfield player as well to share the burden. The hardest thing to do in football at this level as we all know is creating chances and putting the ball in the back of the net.

Share this article

2 comments

  • steviez says:

    there’s one threat that wont be there [Andy sick note] he’s always on the sick. Could we not retire him and cut our loses

    • simon says:

      Well that would take paying out his contract, so whats the point – as hes staying we have to keep paying him anyway – the club are doing the right thing and using the situation to get him back to 100% and his body ready for the rigours of the PL – that will give him the best opportunity to stay fit and benefit the club – he is a beast when hes fit, at times unplayable and one of the best headers in the game but also has ability on the floor, he would thrive on service from Payet, as will Sakho – bringing in another decent forward will allow for some rotation up front so we wont be so reliant on specific individuals to do the job and takes pressure off the players in terms of the amount of fixtures they will play keeping them physically prepared for our season – as for new additions, id like to see Hernandez come in if we can get him, hes perfect for what we need, Austin is too heavily priced and too many clubs sniffing about to see any value in a deal. On another note Valencia has to prove himself this season, bringing in another forward is going to put pressure on him to perform, he has great speed but very often makes poor decisions and takes poor options giving up possession, he will need to up his game to benefit this season, and Zarate, well hes under the microscope aswell, great technical ability but he can be incredibly selfish at times, another who gives up possession in good areas putting the team under pressure, he needs to become more of a team player or he will end up where he did last season – without doubt we need to target a forward and one who is good enough to bang the goals in – we also need to replace Downing, Mirallas would be nice but whether we can pull that one off is another story – also Jarvis, Nolan, Maiga and Obrien need to be moved on, its time we had an upgrade on the qualities they provide to the squad. COYI

Comments are closed.