With a summer of many transfers already, everyone worrying about our marquee signing, what strikers will come in and how many midfielders we have signed; the question of needing a centre back has gone somewhat under the radar.
Last season, West Ham went through a spell of not conceding and our defence looked fairly solid. Although throughout the season, we leaked goals at the back due to some awful defending errors.
When you first look at stats, we are not even in the top five for defensive errors; but when you read into it, it gets worse. Defensive errors leading to goals is the key stat I am looking at. For example, Aston Villa were by far the worst team in the league and looked like they just could not be bothered. Yet we had more errors leading to goals than them, we also had more than Liverpool who had many mistakes from Simon Mignolet; we had the most in the league.
Yes, many came from Jenkinon and yes, some came from Cresswell as he started off the season badly; but this surely should mean we need a centre back?
The partnership of Reid and Ogbonna last year often proved good and towards the end of the season, Ogbonna got better and better.
Although it went the other way for Reid, who started to make mistakes come the end of the season, the back up of Tomkins and Collins was fantastic, as they both filled in when needed and Tomkins could even go to right back.
We now have a problem on our hands, selling Tomkins was not the greatest idea as he played a key role and was a fans’ favourite; but he wanted first team football. I also understand that it is great to include youth into our team with Oxford and Burke coming through, but if the two are not ready, we cannot risk it.
I think an experienced centre back would be perfect to go alongside Ogbonna. If I was Bilic I would be going for someone who is experienced and fairly old school. This is because Angelo loves to pick up the ball and carry it, we need someone who is willing to hoof it next to him. I do not think this is the biggest area to focus on, as a striker is the biggest problem; but this is key.
Some fans of the club and opposition fans are now saying that “A striker is not as important as we think, look how many goals we scored last season”. We took our chances in front of goal with the likes of Payet, Antonio and when fit, Carroll, but it makes you think that if we have a striker in front of our creative players; how many goals could we score?
Bilic certainly knows what he is doing so we will leave it down to him, but I think two strikers, a centre back and right back would make this window one of the most successful ever.
