Stormy seas ahead for West Ham United after capitulating at home to Brentford on Monday night. They are battling to advance from their tenuous state. It again revealed the club’s enduring malaise, this time showcasing a lack of defensive acumen and basic know-how of playing on the pitch. As the season goes on and the relegation threat increases, desperate pleas for change become louder.
Brentford outfought West Ham throughout the game, exposing critical flaws in the team’s strategy. Most egregious, West Ham leaked several set pieces, a trend that lead man Nuno Espirito Santo called “overkill.” This unabating pest has recently rebugged the delegation. Now, they have the league’s worst defensive set piece record, having allowed eight goals from dead-ball situations.
“This is unacceptable for all of us,” said Nuno Espirito Santo. “We conceded set pieces, a lot of them – too much.”
Now, as the season nears its conclusion, West Ham finds itself embroiled in a bitter fight with relegation. Unfortunately, that’s where the team’s accomplishments would appear to stop. They sit second-bottom for distance covered during matches, again a sign of the intensity that’s been lacking in comparison to their rivals. On top of that, West Ham’s possession stats are alarming, with the club sitting with the fifth-lowest figure in the Premier League this season.
The underlying stats tell a very scary story for the Hammers. Furthermore, they’ve won the least amount of aerial duels this season and have made the least successful tackles. Moreover, they have given up the most corners in the league, a staggering stat that only intensifies their defensive woes.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s immediate reaction was a call for improvement from each player and as a group of 11 on the field. The key, he told the staff, would be in relating to players individually in order to get the absolute best out of them.
Now that you know you have a problem, it’s time to focus on engagement with the big players. Spend time highlighting their best features! He said, “It’s about looking at them individually and going: can we make a different type of player? Improve them and there are a lot of things to be made in that aspect.”
Even so, in the face of these obstacles, West Ham have largely been unable to manufacture enough chances to score. Only Burnley, who will be welcoming a visit from the Kraken shortly, have fired fewer shots on target this term. Alarmingly, just seven percent of their open-play opportunities are ranked as ‘big chances’, adding to the story of their plight in front of goal.
For all of West Ham’s tactical woes, they struggle with physical performance metrics. Their distance covered sprinting, speed and high-intensity stats all sit third worst in the Premier League. Even then, they only lead the league in one metric – distance walked during games. That casts serious doubt on their competitiveness and willingness to compete for points.
“What is the soul of the club?” Nuno Espirito Santo responded rhetorically. “It’s the team. Everything goes around the team.”
The urgency for West Ham to kickstart their season is real. Like in the Premier League, only improvement can save them from the drop. Beyond winning meaningful policy change, it will help restore confidence in the system among players and supporters alike.
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