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Moyes' Selection Dilema Ahead Of City

nevillenixon's picture
Submitted by nevillenixon on Wed, 21/10/2020 - 11:19

On what must be one of the rare occassions in a long managerial career, Hammers' boss David Moyes has an unusual dilema to resolve, namely how to keep everyone happy in a squad from which only 18 players can be involved on match days. Of course his squad is perilously short of numbers in certain areas, but he is able to select an incredibly impressive bench to support the starting eleven, and as all Hammers fans know, if there is an injury to be had, usually long term, then West Ham will be the most likely destination!

Sending Felipe Anderson off to Porto FC for the season has released 'space' in the team, because whether he admits it or not, David Moyes has felt obligated to at least try and get the best out of one or two of the expensive 'luxury' players he inherited from his free spending predecessor Manuel Pellegrini. Loaning Anderson out has relieved Moyes from that particular headache, leaving only Sebastien Haller and Pablo Fornals to sort out, and to that purpose Moyes' faith in the latter has been repaid handsomly despite Fornals' propensity to miss absolute sitters!

Fornals' 'duracell bunny' end to end displays have endeared himself to the no nonsense style that Moyes likes, his promotion to the starting line up has coincided with Hammers recent superb run of results, finding a solution to Haller's situation may be a little more difficult. Moyes knows Haller needs the type of service new signing Said Benrahma can provide, but he also needs a commodity that is in much shorter supply, namely time.

The Barclays Premier League is such an unforgiving environment to learn your trade in, which is why a fine specimen of a man like Haller, who towers over most due to his 6'3" frame, is unable to keep his feet and is constantly 'bullied' by defenders, he needs to learn how to cope, problem is there is no time. two wins and a draw see Hammers occupying 9th spot in the league, but a few defeats will see the club back in the mire of last season, consequently Moyes cannot currently risk playing Haller for more than the Cameo role that he has carried out in the last few games prior to picking up an injury just before the now famous 'back from the brink' draw with Tottenham.

If Moyes cannot get Haller's mojo working he may elect to loan him out in order for him to get game time, the reason we mention loan is that no club representatives would envisage buying Haller for even half of the whopping £45 Million Hammers stumped up for his services. If Haller does have a chance to prove himself, possibly in France or Spain where the football s just a little bit less frenetic then maybe he will start to resmble the player he once was when he was at Eintrecht Franfurt.

There are a lot of players who's contracts are up for review or renewal within the next nine months, and it is they who want to impress Moyes, the problem they have is that Moyes, quite rightly has adopted the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach and for now it seems to be working. There will be players who feel disillusioned but realistically the only way a player is going to get a sniff at the first team is by being a substitute or by replacing players who are injured or suspended, not a bad problem for Moyes to have given some of the other issues he has had to cope with in the past. - Ed

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Dartford Bhoy's picture

Stick with the same starting 11 with Hall and Benny ready to come on after 70 minutes.

Real issue for Moyes is do you reward a wonder goal from Manny with a start?

Limited squad can be fixed in the new year window. Remarkable how much easier it will be to get good players to join you when you are in the top half of the table and you tend to have fewer injuries....... watch this space, KTF and COYI's!!!!!!!!!!!

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18 users have voted.

I agree 65,keep things as they are for at least this game,to keep confidence high,change it for this game and get thumped,will bring us right down,dont want that,experiment a bit with lower profile club.

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19 users have voted.

I feel that Lanzini has done enough to earn a start. Trouble is who does he replace? My thought is Arthur, but that means playing around with the formation, I don’t think he will do that. Otherwise it has to be Fornals, that would be the closest to a like for like swap, but Fornals hasn’t done enough wrong to merit dropping.
Can anyone remember a West Ham team ever facing these “Problems” in the past?

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17 users have voted.

I think Masu might be the key on saturday ,he has the ability to memorize Walker ,Walker is one of the best full backs in the game and it will take something special to get the better of him ,we all know Masu can be an exelent coming in from the left
flank ,if Walker gets beaten a couple of times he will exact his own retribution, hes no lightweight and goes in hard i will go as far as to say if Masu keeps taking him on and running him ragged he might just get the line .

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17 users have voted.
Dartford Bhoy's picture

Arthur also has pace and that will be vital when up against Walker , hes no slouch!

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15 users have voted.

Apparently Antonio always has an icepack strapped to his knee / thigh after that hamstring injury. So he will be fully fit to go against Mabu Dhabi Citeh on Sunday.
An unchanged side maybe a good start with Lanzini, Yarmalenko and Benrahma coming on as substitutes sometime in the match. Haller may not be fully fit, but Bowen can be a good choice to move into the centre forward position if Antonio is withdrawn to protect his hamstring from over exertion.

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18 users have voted.

By the way I also watched the Man City v Porto match. However, Anderson and Toni Martinez only warmed the benches and were not brought on even as subs. Hoping to see their performances now for their new club. Accordingly we can bring Anderson back or offload him for good.

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20 users have voted.

The last time West Ham stuck with the same players we nearly won the league. If my memory serves me well we got through 42 games using about 15 players and only replaced a player if he got injured. Everton won the league that year and we finished 3rd just missing out, our highest finish ever with the Boys of 86.
Cant see history repeating itself in this day and age but you can dream!!!

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15 users have voted.

A D Bonds

Dartford Bhoy's picture

Actually, I think Paul Goddard got injured in the first game (at B'ham?) of the season and Johnny L moved Frankie Mac from Midfield to partner Cottee? That turned out to be blessing! What a partnership!

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