Pundit rips into West Ham’s midfield following their 4-1 defeat to Tottenham.
After a promising opening 45 minutes from West Ham, their second-half collapse against Tottenham, a team renowned for doing exactly that, was a bit of a shock.
Unfortunately, their issues are starting to look less like teething problems under Julen Lopetegui and more issues with his set up/the players.
One thing that’s been a consistent and worrying issue is the amount of space the Hammers have been giving their opponents in midfield. While this seemed to be a bit better against Ipswich with Edson Alvarez on the bench, the second-half performance against Spurs shows it’s still their main issue.
Don Hutchinson has identified the lack of pace amongst the midfield players as the main reason as to why they get run through. “Their midfield was awful [vs Spurs]. There’s no legs in that midfield. Guido Rodriguez can’t move. Soucek is a box-to-box player but he can’t really get around the pitch and stop things.”
Although he’s certainly right about the lack of pace, and Rodriguez is particularly slow, the first-half saw him put himself all over the pitch and he actually put on an excellent display.
While the slowness of the players is a huge issue, the set up Lopetegui has them playing in is arguably more important. No matter how slow a player is, there should never be that much space left for the opposition. Even if it was down to speed, as a manager you have to play to the strengths of the players you have at your disposal instead of trying to brute force your way through matches.