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The Blind Hammer Column

Will Rule Changes Help West Ham?

Blind Hammer looks at whether rule changes will help Pellegrini Cup challenge.

Some important changes will be implemented in the Carabao Cup this season.

The most reported is the removal of Extra Time and determination of ties by Penalty Shoot Out. The EFL has also announced that the shootout format will revert to the traditional alternative kicks, rather than the ABBA format trialled last season.

Less well reported but probably just as significant is the removal of seeding which has traditionally protected Premier League clubs. Clubs involved in European Competition will still receive a bye into the third round.

The EFL justified the removal of Extra Time by looking at a statistical analysis which showed 85% of ties were resolved by 90 minutes anyway. .

Finally the VAR experiment will continue for all ties played at Premier League grounds.

Taken together these rule changes introduce much more of a lottery of chance into the competition. There are both threats and opportunities for West Ham.

The threat is pretty obvious. We saw, last season, how a team like Shrewsbury was able to resist, to some extent comfortably, a West Ham team over 90 minutes. There is a far higher chance that West Ham will be forced into the lottery of a Penalty Shoot Out by a lower league team. Psychologically as well as physically a lower league team will find it easier to sustain an extraordinary effort for 90 rather than 120 minutes. My own view is that this rule change will create a scenario where lower league teams will strategise an even more defensive approach.

So West Ham will be more vulnerable to “Giant Killing” via Penalty Shootout. However this risk will apply just as much to competing Premier League clubs. I predict an increase in the number of PL scalps claimed by lower league opposition.

A similar threat is presented by the removal of seeding. It is perfectly possible that West Ham could encounter a tricky away tie at Everton or Wolves at first outing. This threat is shared by all PL clubs though. It is just as possible that West Ham could benefit from a draw opening up as PL clubs eliminate each other.

Personally I would have resisted these changes but they are what we have to work with now.

So to mount a Challenge for the cup requires some strategic analysis not dissimilar to that provided by Southgate for England. Generalised proficiency with Penalty taking, whilst fatigued, will be required across all the squad and not just a specialised select few.

The continued provision of VAR at London Stadium Cup games will similarly provide both threats and opportunities. One of Southgate’s most effective strategic insights was how VAR could literally be a game changer at Set pieces. The reduction of capacity to spoil set pieces by wrestling fouls by defenders provides opportunities for greater offensive threat.

To that end, as VAR is introduced across more competitions, athletic power and physicality will become even more important in both penalty areas.

It appears that Pellegrini is already planning for this. There were already comments from the Wycombe game that the new look West ham now more resembled a team from the land of the Giants. We apparently looked far bigger all over the pitch.

More generally we appear, in advance of any significant sales, to be assembling a squad with, arguably, greater depth than at any time in West Ham history. Many of our recruits are unproven at PL level but signs are promising.

We may just have a squad with sufficient depth to mount a sustained Cup Challenge. We will suffer vulnerability to penalty shootout elimination, but then again in later rounds this lottery could work just as much in our favour against a Chelsea or Manchester City.

COYI
David Griffith

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