OPINION
West Ham United succumbed to a desperately disappointing 2-0 defeat away at Cardiff City on Saturday, as the Hammers’ struggles with consistency continued.
Manuel Pellegrini’s team are the ultimate all-or-nothing Premier League side, and goals from Junior Hoilett and Victor Camarasa condemned them to defeat in the Welsh capital.
The Chilean will be extremely concerned with the performances of many of his players at the Cardiff City Stadium and will have plenty to say to them at training on Monday.
As usual there is plenty to be gleaned from the game, and Forever West Ham has rounded up three things that can be learned from West Ham’s defeat to Cardiff.
Anderson needs to get his act together
Felipe Anderson is undoubtedly one of the most talented players in this Hammers’ squad, but there is no question that he hasn’t been at his best since the turn of the year.
The Brazilian, on a reported £85,000-per-week [Source: Spotrac], enjoyed a tremendous first half of the season, but he has produced next to nothing recently. He is in the team to provide creativity but he rarely does that these days.
Again, he is an incredible talent, but he needs to get his act together here. West Ham need him to perform week in week out if they are to go to the next level and there’s no doubt that he’s not doing that at the moment. Hopefully he improves moving forward because he’s really struggling at the moment.
Fredericks takes step back
In recent weeks Hammers defender Ryan Fredericks has appeared to put a stamp on his competition with fellow right back Pablo Zabaleta, but he took a big step backwards on Saturday.
This was a very poor game from the former Fulham man. He slipped on the Cardiff turf a couple of times early on and never seemed to get going from that point onwards.
It was his poor clearance that inadvertently set the second Bluebirds goal in motion, while he actually played Camarasa onside for his strike. That’s just not good enough from a player of his quality. He needs to get back on the horse next time because this was a poor outing for him.
Hernandez embarrasses himself
Diving is a scourge of the modern game and it’s something that we have seen more and more often in recent years, sadly. However, it never fails to shock you when a player produces a particularly blatant one.
That was very much the case with West Ham attacker Javier Hernandez on Saturday. The Mexican international is a respected veteran and it was bitterly disappointing to see him stoop to this level.
He received little to no contact from the Cardiff defender, yet he deemed it acceptable to throw himself to the floor in an attempt to try and win his side a penalty. It’s simply not good enough and he very much embarrassed himself at the Cardiff City Stadium.
