This result was one of the hardest to swallow in my lifetime as a West Ham fan. We didn’t deserve to lose this game. We didn’t even deserve to draw. We deserved to be celebrating a historic win, breaking Spurs’ unbeaten run and walking away from our last ever game at White Heart Lane victorious. It wasn’t to be. A couple of individual errors combined with a touch of bad luck cost us dearly and robbed us of valuable points.
Spurs delivered a lesson on being clinical and taking your chances. We would do well to learn from this.
Bilic
Make no mistake about it; this will have hurt Bilic as much as anyone. He set the team up perfectly and tactically he outwitted his opposite number – no mean feat against a manager of Pochettino’s calibre.
Every player had a defined and specific role, masterminded by Bilic and engrained by his coaching staff. We are at our best as a counter attacking team and playing teams that set out to dominate possession suits us. Tottenham obliged and we employed tactical pressing, allowing them to keep the ball in their own half, bringing their defence higher up the pitch. We then pressed aggressively when their transitional or attacking players had the ball. It was beautiful to watch and the players executed it expertly.
Yes, we can criticise his substitutions. It seemed risky to play Nordtveit rather than Collins, and replacing Sakho – rusty from his lack of game time but still the best performance by a West Ham forward this season – with Zaza was always going to be a risk. Both, sadly, proved extremely costly.
However, we cannot blame the manager entirely. Nordtveit’s tackle was a terrible decision and Zaza’s inability to play in Payet, with what seemed like a lifetime to pick the pass, were out of Bilic’s control and he could not have expected either player to make those errors.
Randolph, too, made a mistake by palming a shot into the path of Harry Kane, but he also made one excellent save and looked fairly assured when needed. He must have felt a lot of pressure under the circumstances too.
In my opinion, Bilic has suffered the most here as he did everything right, other than taking the risks with the substitutions. Fletcher for Zaza and Collins for Payet may have worked out better, but we don’t know that. Tactically Bilic got this one spot on and deserved a lot more than what he ended up with.
Key performers
Bilic exploited Tottenham’s lack of width and funnelled them into the centre of the pitch where Obiang and Lanzini, among others, did an exceptional job of breaking up the play, slowing down their attacks and winning the ball back.
Lanzini made the most tackles in the game, winning five of seven. Obiang and Ogbonna were just behind him with four of five. Ayew made three of four and he completes the top four for tackles made in the game.
Lanzini also made 17 ball recoveries, more than double that of any Tottenham player. He was the perfect replacement for Noble and has everything in his game. He helped us retain the ball and transition quickly, he is quicker that Noble and technically better. In this formation it is hard to see anyone improving on Lanzini if he continues to play as he did.
Reid was a monster. Truly one of the finest centre back displays I have seen and he lead the team by example. He will be badly missed against Man Utd after picking up an insulting second yellow.
Antonio is another who simply has to be praised. His goal, constant energy and domination of Danny Rose were sights to behold. He continues to go from strength to strength and his attitude, commitment and loyalty is refreshing and commendable.
Payet got a little more room in this game and contributed some magical moments. I know some on here don’t like the term, but he really is world class and even when not on top form he’s capable of turning a game in an instant. Had Zaza not been so hesitant, I’m confident we’d have been celebrating Payet putting us 3-1 up.
Looking forward
Zaman and Hamburg Hammer have covered some excellent points in their articles and from a tactical point of view; we know what an excellent performance we put it. We just couldn’t get the result. It hurts and it’s a lesson well learned, but one I’m confident will make us a better team.
With that in mind, I wanted to look forward to the January transfer window and throw some ideas out there and get peoples thoughts.
In my opinion, our key focus should be to sign two players of the highest quality we can – a striker and a right back.
Recruitment
Forget the price tag, we need to focus our energy on the players that the scouting team, analysts and experts believe are the best fit for the style of football the manager wants to play and someone that will be motivated to give their all for the club.
We are fortunate to have one of the finest directors of recruitment in Tony Henry. He was responsible for bringing players such as John Stones and Seamus Coleman to Everton, paying only £60,000 for the latter. He was heavily involved in the discovery of Ronaldo and was cited by David Sullivan for offering him the chance to sign him at his time at Birmingham, shortly before he went to Man Utd.
Sakho, Antonio, Lanzini, Cresswell, Kouyate, Payet, Ogbonna and Obiang have all been signed under his stewardship and all for very humble fees relative to their ability.
Unfortunately, we have failed to sustain such high levels of recruitment this summer with most failing to adapt or considered not good enough for the Premier League. Some players can take time to adapt, especially to our league, and it is unfair to write them off entirely – Obiang is a fine example of a player that many thought wouldn’t make the grade initially, but given playing time he’s developed into our most consistent central midfielder.
My point is this, whatever went on over the summer needs to be reviewed and compared to the success of previous windows. Hopefully there is a clear answer and we can overcome the mistakes made. I’d also like to see Tony Henry back to his best and fully supported by the board to unearth us some more gems.
With this in mind, here are a few possible solutions for our striker and right back problems.
Striker:
Premier League experience
Daniel Sturridge
Siedo Berahino
Javier Hernandez
From Europe
Anthony Modeste (FC Cologne)
Mario Mandzukic (Juventus)
Mauro Icardi (Inter Milan)
Sandro Ramirez (Malaga)
Right BACK:
Premier League experience
Darmian (3 years remaining on contract)
Sagna (out of contract in the summer)
Emerging talent from Europe
Mitchell Weiser (Hertha BSC – 2 years contract remaining)
Ricardo Pereira (2 year loan from Porto to Nice – can this be affected?)
Joao Cancelo (4 year contract but huge prospect – could cost big money though)
Tin Jedvaj (4 years remaining – Croatian – plays high level for Bayer Leverkusen)
There are pros and cons for each player and whether we try and attract an experienced Premier League player, or take a gamble on someone with no experience in England’s top flight is another question.
My shortlist would be:
Striker: Sturridge, Hernandez or Modeste
Right Back: Sagna, Mitchell Weiser or Tin Jedvaj
I think we need experience up-front but could afford to take a more calculated gamble at right back. As we’re currently playing with 3 at the back, employing wing back’s ahead of them, it feels like we could afford to bring in an emerging talent and between them and Byram have our flank covered for the foreseeable future.
However, I think Sagna still has one/two more seasons at the top of his game and I think he’d prove an excellent and experienced addition to the squad if we could attract him.
We’ve got a tough run of games coming up but we’re set up well to play the big boys. If we can maintain the performance levels we showed against Spurs then I fully expect us to get points on the board against the odds, and book our place in the next round of the cup. We just need to pull together and keep the faith.
COYI