West Ham United forward Michail Antonio spoke to a reporter before our clash with Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday.
And something he said actually defied belief.
Michail Antonio put in a display that typified West Ham overall – he was nowhere near good enough and made things far too easy for his opponents.
Antonio spoke about his desire to reach 100 Premier League goals for the Hammers last week, but after yesterday’s showing, he’ll be lucky to reach 70.
I’m not singling him out for criticism here – pretty much every West Ham player was terrible, aside from Guido Rodriguez, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Jarrod Bowen.
Mohammed Kudus would have joined those three players on that list, if he didn’t let us down by getting sent off late on in the game.
We defended atrociously as a team, and Spurs cut through us like a hot knife through butter, time and time again.
It’s been that way at the London Stadium for two years now, and Julen Lopetegui has to find a way of turning it around.
The 34-year-old discussed the Hammers’ defence before the game against Tottenham, and highighted the porous nature of our back-line.
However, he seems to think this is a new phenomenon that has only occurred since Lopetegui took over.
Before the game against Spurs, Antonio spoke to Darren Fletcher on TNT Sports (October 19th, 11:37 am).
In response to a question asking him what it’s been like since Lopetegui came into the club, Antonio came out with a shocking answer.
He said, “Obviously it’s a completely new way of playing. We’re trying to be a possession-based team now, so we’re more expansive rather than being compact. So we’ve been conceding more goals lately than we normally do.”
Wow. Did the Jamaica international forget that we conceded 74 Premier League goals last season?
That was the worst tally aside from the three teams that got relegated by the way.
Sure, we’ve conceded 15 goals so far in the league this season, and that’s not good enough. But that’s still a better rate than the amount we let in last term.
I can’t actually believe that Michail Antonio highlighted our defending as something that has got worse. Sure, we’re not great, but there’s no way we’ve regressed from last season’s shambolic efforts.
Also, the Hammers forward inferred that the Hammers were tight and compact last season? I don’t think we were at all.
We got ripped through so many times, I’ve almost lost count of the hammerings we were on the end of.
5-2 away at Crystal Palace, 5-0 at Fulham, 5-0 at Chelsea and 6-0 at home to Arsenal spring to mind immediately.
It’s fine to criticise Lopetegui, his methods and the players’ performances. However, let’s not pretend that we were in any way shape or form at the races last season, because we quite simply weren’t.
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