Guest Postby DC
So, it’s been nearly 4 full days but I’m still struggling to get this horrific image out of my mind. Two centre halves standing 60 yards apart and not a full-back in sight. I keep waking up in cold sweats!
And no prizes for guessing which Spurs player puts the ball in the back of the old West Ham onion bag.
The fact of the matter is that the Hammers under Bilic have played this way from Day 1. In our very first outing against FC Lusitans (albeit with Westley in ‘apparent’ charge) our two centre halves, Tomkins and Burke split wide when we had the ball. Young Reece Oxford played as the defensive midfielder making up the triangle with the centre halves (now Noble). Our full-backs, O’Brien and Page pushed on (now Jenkinson & Cresswell). So from Day 1, it’s simply the personnel that have changed, not Slav’s approach.
And so to some questions.
As ’ CENTRAL DEFENDERS! ’ should Tomkins and Reid perhaps be standing just a wee little bit closer together? Is Noble really good enough on the ball to play that role without making costly mistakes every few weeks? After all, we know that at Premier League level the opposition have a nasty habit of punishing the smallest of errors. Is Oxford not more suited to such a defensive midfield position role being a ball playing centre half? Does Slav have a degree of misplaced trust in Tomkins ball-playing abilities? Should our full-backs not be visible (in shot), in other words in a position where they give themselves a slight chance of recovering defensively if we give the ball away?
Surely a major concern has be that when Kane shot and scored there were 4 Spurs players up against 3 West Ham players. Our full backs were somewhere near the half way line (slight exaggeration). It feels like we keep pressing a ‘self-destruct button’ – consider that 5 seconds earlier our goalkeeper had the ball in his hands! It certainly reaffirms Bilic’s claim that we were second best in transition. My personal opinion is that our two full-backs could be Usain Bolt & Justin Gatlin, they ain’t gonna recover in transit from the positions they keep putting themselves in.
Now I accept I’ve been banging on about this for some time, but this snapshot really highlights my point about the system we’re playing, or not in the case of Bilic’s ‘so called’ 4-2-3-1. Seriously? When we have the ball it looks much more like a 2-1-4-2-1 to me. Nevertheless, whatever the system, surely there are more accidents just around the corner if this doesn’t get addressed pretty quickly.
Yes, it’s expansive. Perhaps even ‘bum on edge of seat’ exciting. But we ain’t the Harlem Globetrotters of football. At least not yet!