Guest Post by DC
In November 2015, I posted an article on WHTID after a dismal 4-1 away defeat to Spurs – the subject being Spurs 3rd goal against us that day scored by a certain Mr Harry Kane.
My specific focus and angst that day was geared towards Jenkinson and Cresswell’s positioning in relation to our two centre halves after James Tomkins played a stray pass. Namely our full backs were about 30 yards ahead of Tomkins and Reid. There was no contingency plan in place for if or when we gave the ball away playing out from the back. Loads of space on the pitch for the opposition to run into, exactly where we don’t want that space, in our final third. Diabolical Defending!
Fast forward to August 2017 and under the same Bilic regime, I experienced the same angst during our 3-0 away defeat at Newcastle. My sympathies went out to Declan Rice that day as he was pick-pocketed in Defensive Midfield by two Newcastle players for their first goal, again as we tried to play out from the back. A steep learning curve for the young lad, but yet again I found myself searching for our full-backs – just the one right back barely in his own half this time. Loads of space on the pitch for the opposition to run into, exactly where we don’t want that space, in our final third. Diabolical Defending!
This summer a trumpet fanfare across social media greeted Mr Pellegrini and his boys to the club but yep you guessed it, we fast forward to last Saturday and the visit of Wolves where we stumble across an all too familiar picture. A ponderous Sanchez receiving not the best ball in the world from Balbuena. The ball gets ‘nicked off him’, Balbuena and Diop are isolated, split 30-40 odd yards apart, the right full back is barely in our half and Cresswell is in the opposition half near the centre circle, albeit goal-side of the eventual Wolves goalscorer who burns Cressy in a 50 yard footrace to our penalty box. Loads of space on the pitch for the opposition to run into, exactly where we don’t want that space, in our final third. Diabolical Defending!
What’s that saying? “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and ……..” I don’t need to spell it out.
There will always be passionate discussions about our best team and ‘formation’ on WHTID as well as the odd tendency by some of us to tap them out on shall we say, quite a regular basis. We talk of 3 at the back. 4 at the back. 5 at the back. Maybe these formations are based on where the players stand when we kick off or perhaps more unconsciously, we visualise how the team is set-up when the opposition have the ball and are fully encamped in our half.
Watching the Mighty Hammers over the last few years, I’m mostly concerned when we have the ball and are looking to push forward, i.e. when we’re likely to get the ball nicked off us early doors. This for me is when we are at our most vulnerable. Our full-backs are regularly AWOL when this happens. There’s certainly enough evidence out there to suggest that we’re not playing with anything other than a Split Back 2 when we have the ball. From where I’m sitting, we’ve been doing this for a few years now. Do we really think we now have good enough players to do this and get away with it in the weeks and months ahead?
Some might argue that this is the way modern football is played these days – the way forward! I seem to remember a very much fancied Brazil side getting their bums slapped 7-1 when they tried doing something very similar against Germany in the 2014 World Cup Semi Final on their home turf. It smacked of arrogance, the net result being David Luiz hiding his face in shame beneath his shirt as he cried himself off the field of play at the end of the game. Brazil’s wing backs had forgot the ‘back’ bit.
Footballers, namely Central Defensive Midfielders, lose the ball from time to time – even the very best ones. Some lose it slightly more than others. All teams need a contingency plan for when they lose possession, particularly when they lose the ball deep in their own half. This is the main reason I would be very wary about playing Declan Rice in the CDM role at the moment. Personally I think it’s totally unfair on the young lad as long as the full backs continue to be deployed in such a random way.
Up against a West Ham side, the opposition don’t always need to work that hard to create space going forward as we seem to randomly hand out vast swathes of space to them on a plate. In a pure footballing sense, perhaps the players think they’re better than they are on the ball?
In terms of understanding the Team dynamics, we really seem to be struggling with the idea that a full-back’s first and foremost role is to defend. In my opinion, until we get a grip on this, we will continue to play kamikaze football of the highest order.
Clean Sheets Please asap – COYI!