We played three games in the Premier League last week and secured seven points which has dramatically improved our league position prior to the Festive season. Before the game at Liverpool, anyone associated with West Ham would have bitten your hand off for that points tally. Whilst we showed grit and determination at Liverpool the two home games against relegation favourites Burnley and Hull hardly inspired, despite the victories. The result is more important than the performance right? I think we all realise that all is not well on the pitch and we are papering over the cracks. I am not saying that Bilic has lost the dressing room so to speak, far from it, but I find myself more and more questioning his tactics. In my half a century of watching the team it is surprising how many times I can look back and say that the fans could see the problems on the pitch when the management couldn’t or wouldn’t.
I am not normally the stats man on this blog, but I used to divulge in them in a previous life when I was writing stuff on the Sporting Life site on all things West Ham. Here are a few that might get a few discussions started. All stats used are for PL games only.
We have won five Premier League games this season, four at home and one away. All have been by our previous managers favourite score line, 1-0. The victory at Palace was quite a decent performance, especially playing the last 15 minutes with ten men after Cresswell’s send off, but the four at home have all been very dire performances. We have played better this season without winning.
We have played nine home games this season and have only been winning one of them at half time, thanks to a penalty follow up by Mark Noble against Burnley in added time. In fact we have only scored two other first half goals at home all season. Both came against Watford in a match we contrived to lose.
In contrast, in eight games away from home we have been leading three times at half time and only trailing twice. Yet we have only one win to our name and five defeats.
For many that are saying that we are only up for it in one half each game, those two stats ring true. Want further confirmation? This is alarming. Home or away we have only scored in both halves ONCE all season. And yep, we lost that one too thanks to a capitulation at Tottenham.
The good news is that of the recognised big six in the League, we have played five of them already away from home. The only one we have not visited is Arsenal. They of course, are the only one we have played at home. Obviously for the remainder of the season we need to lift for some very big home games, whilst we also need to start to hang on to any potential leads we are securing when we visit the likes of Swansea, Leicester et all.
Management will be happy to see that we are 3rd in attendance figures this season and first in percentage fill which is at 99.9%. Looking at all those empty white seats I would suggest that this is another stat that is papering over the cracks?
This season has been a disappointing one compared to last season, but realistically are we just reverting to type from what we have been used to in many other previous seasons? For me, we have played very well in two games this season and we lost one of them – Spurs. The most complete performance came at Crystal Palace. We ground out two points in Manchester and Liverpool which was admirable, but they were a far cry from our performances at both places last season. In my opinion our best performance of the season was against Chelsea in the League Cup, but there was much less pressure on the players in that game. It was a throw back to last season with even a great vocal performance from the crowd.
So, back to the tactics and it looks ever increasingly that Bilic will either thrive or fall on his sword mainly on the back of two decisions. The first is his insistence that Antonio is not a defensive liability and secondly, his three at the back with two wing backs set up. It took a player consortium to approach Bilic about the fact that Antonio was not a right back in a 4-4-2 formation, such was his blinkered view that he thought he was. The player has scored more than a third of all our goals this season and received an International call up earlier this season, but a right back he is not. Secondly, using the three at the back system is clearly not allowing us to dominate teams at the Olympic Stadium where we have mainly, so far, only encountered teams from the second division of the Premier League. The system does look to have merit when we play teams that we know are going to dominate possession, especially away from home. In my view Bilic has to determine prior to the end of the January transfer window what system we will be using for the second half of the season. If we are going to continue with the current system we have to invest in a right sided central defender who is comfortable on the ball and can defend! Not only will this release our only box to box midfielder in Kouyate but we need back up in this position to cover for any injuries and suspensions to our other central defenders. If we are going to revert to 4-4-2 we need a quality right back. Hopefully Bilic will not be transparent in his tactics and he will use both systems whenever needed, in which case we need BOTH.
Obviously, we would also like another striker but that is an article for another day. Your thoughts?
I would also like to take this opportunity to wish Iain, the readers and all the authors on the site a very enjoyable Christmas and all the very best for 2017