Graeme Souness slammed West Ham for their lack of legs in midfield and claimed the first thing you needed to be in the Premier League is hard to beat.
The Sky Sports pundit shared that it simply leapt out at him that the Hammers can’t stop their opposition playing due to not having the energy in midfield to deny them having it their own way.
Souness added that the centre of midfield in a team is normally referred to as the engine and it was clear that the pairing of Mark Noble and Jack Wilshere in the middle of the park simply wouldn’t work.
“The first thing you need to be in the Premier League is hard to play against and hard to beat,” wrote Souness in his column for The Times.
“It leaps out at me that West Ham don’t have enough legs in midfield to stop the opposition playing, which is a big part of being successful at the highest level.
“It’s called the engine room for a reason and a pairing of Mark Noble and Jack Wilshere in there simply won’t work.”
OPINION
Souness savagely destroys the Hammers in his latest column and his somewhat sarcastic remark about the centre of midfield being the engine room leaves no doubt that he has been unimpressed with the club so far. Manuel Pellegrini’s side have slumped to four defeats out of four and are looking to get their first points on the board against Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday. While Souness claims that Wilshere and Noble don’t work when played together, this pairing hasn’t been seen since the second game of the season. It seems the Hammers manager has realised just like Souness that when Wilshere and Noble are asked to run the midfield, they simply get overrun and bypassed by their opponents. It’ll be interesting who Pellegrini ends up settling on being his midfield pairing as aside from Declan Rice, it’s hard to see who he can call upon to give his side’s midfield the legs it needs. David Moyes had a similar problem when in charge of the Hammers last season and despite the big summer spend, the Hammers are no closer to a long-term solution.
