There are other ‘give-away’ signs as to a team’s performance apart from the league table position. If West Ham Chairman David Sullivan is in any doubt as to the severity of the issues surrounding the Hammers team and the future of head coach Julen Lopetegui then statistics carried by bbc.com make the point abundantly clear. Indeed, it is staring everybody – owners, fans, players, head coach, straight in the face and doesn’t need embellishment:
“West Ham have conceded at least once in each of their past 14 Premier League home games, the longest ongoing run of any side, and the Hammers’ longest ever in the competition. They last failed to keep a clean sheet in more consecutive top-flight home games between December 1964 and October 1965 (16).
West Ham have conceded 15 goals in the opening 15 minutes of Premier League games so far in 2024, the most any side have conceded in a single calendar year in the competition. Five of those have come so far this season, a joint-league high, along with Ipswich.”
Fourteen games without a clean sheet. Our worst run in sixty years. Ten of them under a new head coach. The depressing thing? I don’t expect Lopetegui to even attempt to fix this against Everton despite it being – allegedly – a must win game.
Can you imagine the attitude of any previous West Ham Manager? Be it the aforementioned Moyes, Allardyce, Bilic, even Pellegrini? Don’t concede in the first half, guys. Maybe keep those full backs ‘defending’ for the first hour? A nice solid Allardyce ‘don’t concede’ first half would make a refreshing change.
I’d quite like to be bored just for a while knowing that we were getting harder to beat instead of watching chaos unfold again. Doesn’t mean I’m a Moyes recidivist but just – any damned’ Premier League manager worth his pay knows to set his team up not to concede early on.
At least there’d be a plan.
