POSITION UPDATE: We end the matchweek in 13th following Tottenham’s 2-1 win over Burnley.
Life started out well for the Hull City Tigers, as they pounced on the Foxes with a shock 2-1 win on the opening day of the season. Soon after, they got a 2-0 victory over the Swans. Following on from their bright start, they have only won once in 14 matches, and as such will be spending Christmas at the bottom of the table. In these icy conditions, they face extinction with a lack of resources available.
The January transfer window is not far away, but the Tigers are unlikely to receive any new ammunition. Quite rightly, the management of the Tigers has been brought into disrepute. I truly wish this was all about their proposals to market the team as “Hull City Tigers” instead of “Hull City AFC”, but the situation is far more convoluted than that!
Hull have the lowest net spend of any promoted side this season, which is roughly at £15M. In fact, the Hull City Supporters Trust (HCST) have taken out a month-long advertisement highlighting the rise in ticket prices, despite the club’s vice-chairman stating: “we do not believe that constantly raising prices is a viable long-term option.” The HCST don’t even see the point in staging a matchday protest, because so many disenfranchised fans are staying away, as is evident by the dropping attendances. But it isn’t just the fans who are unhappy.
Captain Curtis Davies said that the team “need someone who can put the ball in the net.” There are a number of former PL teams that are struggling financially in lower divisions, and it is difficult to see Hull buck the trend at the moment. The Hull team can’t improve with the squad they have. There is no point in yo-yoing between the top two tiers, as promotion isn’t as easy as Big Sam made it look for us. Norwich City have been promoted to the big time and relegated to the Championship on a regular basis, and currently find themselves 10th in the Championship. They have struggled to build on their successes, and Hull City cannot afford to go down this passage. Both teams have had Mbokani in the Premier League. He is worthless. He missed a gift of a chance from Cresswell! Christmas isn’t the time to be missing those.
Hull will be disheartened by this defeat, but they shouldn’t. By extension, I would say that we should remain positive, and not belittle our team’s performance too much (yet I will, nevertheless), because we are quickly turning into Hull’s bogey team. We won the match, despite our frame of the goal being hit on three separate occasions. In our last match against the Tigers, Collins made a last man tackle with James Tomkins also putting in a strong performance to avoid conceding first, though we definitely should have. The scoreline? A 3-0 win for us. In this match, Kouyaté also made a last man tackle with Reid also doing well at the back. Fernandes and the post also saved us! We win 1-0 through a soft penalty. I could draw parallels with the 2-1 victory in which our fans booed Big Sam, despite winning, but you get the picture.
The point I’m trying to make is that we can’t take any huge negatives with us into the next match. I read the WhoScored match report, which said our team had no significant weaknesses (I kid you not!) As for the Tigers, they are on a run of seven successive away defeats in the PL, so can’t afford to put too much of it down to luck. Mike Phelan was right in saying that his team “should have been out of sight.”
This Hull side should have been beaten rather comfortably judging by their away form and overall position. We certainly didn’t play to the best of our ability. But, I personally believe that the lack of attacking options will do this. The formation we are playing in means our wingbacks need to be smart, and hold the ball. Antonio was a shining example playing in several roles throughout the match. Even Carroll did well in midfield. The players were helping each other out when called upon.
However, our constant changing of roles meant that we couldn’t do what was required of us at the right time. Something that was made abundantly clear in this match is that our players are lacking their native instincts. There were many occasions in which Carroll had the opportunity to run forward when Payet or another player had the ball, but didn’t make the runs when needed. Likewise, Antonio didn’t do much of this either, and Ayew didn’t create many running opportunities. Problems at both ends. David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and Andre Ayew may both share birthdays, but that does not mean Ayew can be described as the former!
Antonio had a great chance on the run receiving the ball from Payet to go one-on-one, but his second touch of the ball let him down, and Clucas stopped him in his tracks. This single event speaks volumes about our current attacking ability. The fact that we are playing with a striker who either has to play in midfield to win the ball in the air or make clearances back in defence means we lack the counter-attacking ability of last season. Believe me, we need it! Like Hull City, we may also need to invest in a striker. We are an attacking team, so getting another forward will help. Only Southampton and Everton have stopped us from scoring this season.
We have won consecutive Premier League games at the London Stadium for the first time, and are beginning to show signs of the sort of dominant play we had last season. One problem I identified in my previous match reviews was that we weren’t having enough shots on target. However, we seem to have turned a corner getting six and seven shots on target in our last two matches. I think this is the case, as we are forward-thinking… in the literal sense! We have seen a lot of back-passes from Noble amongst others, but we haven’t seen much of it recently. 70% of our passes were in the final third this match, so we are seeing more of the West Ham of last season. Still not convinced? We have dominated possession with 58% on average in our previous two matches.
The reason we finished the day in 13th is down to the flexibility of our players. Slav seems to have masterminded this formation very well. Perhaps he was willing to take a punt, given that we have many players who are capable of playing elsewhere on the pitch. Antonio, Kouyaté, Cresswell, Lanzini and Carroll are a few examples.
With 5?7 per cent of the vote, congratulations to The Post on securing today's Man of the Match award!
???? #COYI #WHUHUL pic.twitter.com/AdHur8bhTV— West Ham United (@WestHamUtd) December 17, 2016
We could potentially get into the top half before the end of the calendar year. I’m far too optimistic for some reason. Perhaps I’m, like many, hoping for a Christmas miracle. With Bob Bradley’s Swansea losing 3-0 to Boro, we can certainly hope for a win. I sincerely hope all trains through Swansea haven’t been cancelled due to a massive points failure, though!