OPINION
West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini would have been disappointed to lose yet another league game and would have learnt several things about his side after their 1-0 defeat to Wolves.
Adama Traore earned his side the win by scoring in injury time to see Wolves leave the London Stadium with a narrow win and three points to add to the board.
However while it may have been a narrow defeat for the Hammers, their performance was less than inspiring and there was definitely lots of room for improved.
Forever West Ham has rounded up three things learned about the Hammers from their 1-0 defeat to Wolves.
Diop and Balbuena showed signs of a promising partnership
While positives for the Hammers were few and far between, one of the main ones was the promising looking defensive partnership of Issa Diop and Fabian Balbuena. The two centre-backs had a very good outing against Wolves despite their side suffering a defeat. Pellegrini has constantly rotated his defence so far this season but he must stick with these two players from now on. Balbuena and Diop showed enough against Wolves to suggest that if partnered together for several games in a row than they will able to form an understanding partnership which will make the Hammers way more solid at the back. With Balbuena’s no nonsense style and Diop’s ability to play the ball out as he is comfortable with it at his feet, these two could easily compliment each other’s respective styles of play.
Pellegrini must work out Wilshere mystery
Jack Wilshere clearly has bucket loads of talent but Hammers supporters are yet to see the best of him. The 26-year-old midfielder played 64 minutes of Saturday’s match before being replaced by Pedro Obiang and while he wasn’t awful, it’s hard to claim he was good either. It’s unclear what Wilshere is meant to add to the team so far, whether he is meant to aid the side’s attack or sit in the front of the Hammers’ defence and help his side control tempo of the game. All that can be established at the moment is that Pellegrini needs to work out the best way to utilise Wilshere soon because as it stands the Hammers are clearly wasting his talents and it’s helping neither the club or the player to impress.
Antonio must be axed
It would be very interesting to hear Pellegrini justify Michail Antonio’s continued selection as he has been a liability for his side in all his outings so far, which includes his display against Wolves. The 28-year-old winger, who earns £70,000-a-week at the London Stadium (Source: Spotrac), offers nothing going forward as he squandered a golden opportunity for his side against Wolves and makes his team defensively vulnerable by his lack of urgency over tracking back. In fact right-back Ryan Frederick’s had a nightmare time against Wolves and instead of helping his teammate, Antonio left the defender to fend for himself which caused his side to suffer as a result. Antonio has offered nothing so far in his displays and after another terrible outing against Wolves, it’s clear that he’s a liability who must be axed immediately.
