It’s difficult to look at West Ham at this point in the season and not treat them like some sort of wounded animal in need of being put down. So often the first response of people talking about them is a simple: “Awww, poor West Ham…”, and ultimately out will come the cliché: “They are too good to go down”. But let that not detract from the fundamental point that there is still a high chance that they will go down.
This post will, after watching the Wolves match, examine now some claims that have been made to explain West Ham’s alarming lack of form this season and assess what weight we can attach to each one.
The Squad isn’t good enough
This is a side that contains 3 current England internationals (Green, Upson and Cole), 2 ex-England internationals (Dyer and Parker) an ex-u21 captain (Noble), a current u21 starter (Tomkins), and no less than 11 full internationals from other countries (Faubert, Behrami, Mido, Spector, Franco, Kovac, Collison, Gabbidon, McCarthy, Boa Morte and Ilan).
I am sorry but if you cannot create an XI out of those players who can compete with Wolves than something is wrong somewhere down the line. This is arguably a stronger squad than the one that finished 9th in the 05/06 season.
However, this is a squad that has performed poorly consistently, and international caps can be seen as a misleading stat to value quality by. Of the full internationals 7 are over the age of 30, and one of them is Matthew Upson.
Validity 2/10
There aren’t enough defenders
Despite the quality of the players, there are some issues regarding how many players West Ham have in each position. Most fundamentally this concerns the defence. West Ham’s current centre back roster is Upson, Tomkins, Gabbidon and da Costa. Of these, Gabbidon is injury prone and slow, da Costa is untested, Tomkins is young and needs to be blooded, not have a long gruelling season (his mistake on Tuesday night reflects that too much is being asked of him) and one of these is Matthew Upson. Jordan Spence is tipped as a rising youth star but again he poses the same issues as Tomkins, how much football is too much for a young lad? Spector has been asked to fill in at CB, but his error for Jarvis’ goal against Wolves showed that he is not a natural in this position, being as he is primarily a FB.
The FB positions are again shaky. Faubert is a defensive liability and often Behrami plays RM to cover his foibles. However, this limits Behrami’s effectiveness, as he is most useful when deployed in CM. Spector is considered the back-up RB, thought Behrami would arguably slip back there if Faubert received an injury. Herita Ilunga, who had a superb season in the last campaign, has suffered with injury and the loss of form that always accompanies this. This has meant that Daprela, a 19 year old Swiss junior international, has been asked to fill in. It has said a lot that he has been consistently one of our better performers. Perhaps the naivety of youth has allowed him licence to roam forward, but he has looked more than capable of making that LB spot his own. Again, Spector is considered the reserve LB.
Validity: 7/10
The midfield has lacked quality and creativity
The midfield is equally unbalanced, though not in numbers. The problem here lies in the position that each midfielder wants to occupy. West Ham are overrun with CMs, and not the Gerrard style CMs but the boring, holding midfielders. You know that ones that you usually only need one of in a standard 442 that Zola seems to favour? Kovac, Parker, Noble and Behrami all often want to play the same role as each other, leading to a dearth in creativity. Parker is undoubtedly a shoe-in for the starting XI and rightly so, but against Wolves it was he who had to make the gut-busting runs to the box and provide the creative spark through the centre. This was on top of being expected to break up play in his own half. A common sight would be for Parker to disrupt a Wolves attack, then pass it on quickly, only for the potential attack to grind to a halt while Parker sprinted up field to orchestrate the attack from there.
Radoslav Kovac, often Parker’s CM partner has proven how limited a player he is this season, poor in the air, with one of the worst ranges of passing of any CM in the Premiership and little desire to get forward, he encapsulates the worst aspects of the modern phenomenon of the holding midfield player. His inclusion often seems unnecessary when it is Behrami (from the right) and Parker who are forced to do his work for him. Behrami, for all his effort, is a not a natural winger, and not the sort that is needed in the standard 442. With the inclusion of two more defensive minded holding midfielders, the wingers need to be the outlet ball and drive the attack forward. Behrami however lacks the skill to go past most Premiership FBs and is more comfortable giving and going, making the play far too narrow. It also often negates Faubert’s natural instinct to over-lap by leaving the French international isolated in the advanced positions down the right.
Mark Noble is a talented player but one struggling to find his own style of play. Often asked this season to be the creative spark through the centre he has struggled to supply the necessary vision. Not that he is bad at this, but he often takes time in assessing the play and seems too keen to track back and put in the tackles. Not necessarily a criticism, but one that means that he often finds himself out of position when asked to launch an attack.
Most frustratingly of all is the idea that Zola has often made four of these players make up our midfield. A midfield four of Collison – Parker – Kovac – Behrami, means that you have 4 CMs playing together, this has been ruthlessly exposed at times, forcing Behrami and Parker to not play their natural game and leaving Kovac, probably the weakest of the bunch, playing the holding role. Watching four midfielders occupy the same space has been a common sight for West Ham fans this season. Collison, one of the brightest prospects, is a creative CM, perhaps in the Bowyer mould, but he has often been asked to play wide-left and now currently injured, his presence is being greatly missed.
Of the flair players West Ham do possess (Diamanti, Dyer and Stanislas), it is often the case that they are not utilised enough or correctly. Diamanti is clearly a skilful player and one that the fans have quickly warmed to, but he is not a typical 442 wideman. When played on the left he either takes up advanced positions too quickly and seems starved of the ball, or tracks back in order to gain possession but ends up receiving the ball in his own half and therefore being incapable of showcasing his skill. Stanislas is also talented, but defensively and tactically very immature (to be expected of a young player) and his weaknesses have been apparent often when he has started games. The phenomenon of inside-out wingers (see Jonathan Wilson’s excellent column here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/mar/24/the-question-inside-out-wingers) has also been implemented with some measure of failure. With Stanislas on the left, and Diamanti on the right it grew tiresome watching Stanislas barely touch the ball and Diamanti be forced to always cut in to his favoured left foot. Against Wolves, While Diamanti was not perfect in the first half, in the second, watching him endlessly cut in and leave the space between the front corner of the penalty box and the corner flag virtually untouched was tiresome and frustrating to say the least.
Validity: 8/10
Team Selection has been poor
I feel I have addressed this at various points throughout my diatribe so far, but I would like to address it here. In certain positions there has been little choice for Zola. In defence I’m sure Zola would have preferred not to have to use Tomkins so regularly but circumstances have dictated that he be a regular starter, here you must have some sympathy for him. However, his failure to realise that 4 CMs cannot play together, and his reluctance to play an attackive minded CM has been poor and seemed inexplicable to most.
Pre-January, the club did have a striker crisis, with injuries to Cole, Franco and the retirement of Ashton. But in that window 3 strikers were acquired and now, with Cole and Franco back to fitness, the club has an abundance of players in that position. But, Zola has not been able to settle on a pair to play. Franco, who looked good pre-January has been relegated out of the starting XI for Benni McCarthy who looks a million miles away from match fitness. Ilan, the Brazilian international has been anonymous and Mido is arguably too similar a striker to Carlton Cole for them to play together. There is also an alarming lack of pace upfront (in fact throughout much of the squad) and this issue is not helped by the aging, journeymen strikers, who litter the teamsheet.
Validity 9/10
It seems that a lot of the blame can be placed at the door of the management, but it would be too easy (though not financially so) to sack Zola. The question remains, who would be brought in to replace him?
It is a frustrating time to be a West Ham fan, but it seems that they may just be one formation change or one act of ruthlessness in team selection away from getting the results they need to stay up. With a relatively easy run-in to the end of the season, West Ham would not be favourites for the drop, but unless something is done then perhaps they will see Championship football at the Boleyn ground next season. Would a clear-out and restart be the worst thing for the club? They did come back stronger after they went down in the 2002/2003 season, but it seems that financially it could utterly cripple the club. Survival then seems to be the only option, but whether this will happen is another matter altogether.
