It may come as a surprise to some, but yes indeed against Burton, there was a gameplan and a set of tactics that Nuno sent the Hammers out with in an attempt to defeat Burton.
As anticipated, having a heavily rotated side which saw a handful of youth players along with second team players in, tactics weren’t going to be as smooth as expected, but unfortunately, that only came into reality once the game had kicked off.
Straight away, one of the negatives was that Mavropanos, Max Kilman and Mayers all played as three deep-lying centrebacks whereas in previous games, Nuno and Paco had pushed the defence forward, which subsequently causes gaps to open. Against Manchester United and Burnley for the majority of the game during the buildup, the defenders were towards the halfway line once building up momentum, but against Burton, that didn’t become transparent and everyone became out of line. Ollie Scarles and Walker-Peters both moved up the pitch to help the attackers as informed, but as the defenders didn’t push high enough, it appeared that they weren’t doing what they were told to do…
Furthermore, in the midfield department, Nuno attempted to play Magassa and Kante in a similar style to Fernandes and Soucek but unfortunately, the French duo couldn’t replicate this. Magassa and Kante had poor communication and often drifted onto the same side of the pitch together, forcing other players out of position and opening up gaps. This was later on solved in the match by bringing on Freddie Potts, which further secured our midfield stability at the core and a big reason as to why the game flipped on its head.
Lamadrid also had a painfully slow start but in the second half appeared to have a bit about him, he initially started on the left hand side where he appeared as more than underhwelming and could barely get a touch on the ball, but in the second half before being dragged off he was placed towards the middle which opened up gaps and provided him the oportunity to pass to Scarles or Traore, he opting for Scarles the most.
As mentioned, the midfielders struggle inadvertently affected both Traore and Wilson, the problem being that due to gaps opening up and Burton attempting to exploit them, these gaps meant West Ham were unlikely to be able to get the ball to Traore and provide him option to be able to move forward, hence why when picking up the ball he either attempted to draw a foul or pass back to try and regain shape. The same reasons as to why Wilson was affected, given that he was getting no service and had no one to work with.
Nuno going MI6 style in terms of hiding injury information about Paco is worrying, given that Wilson needs someone to work with, he needs the stability of another striker so he can time his runs and get into a good position and due to not being able to have that available to him, he struggled immensely and quite frankly had an embarrassing performance against Burton.
Nuno attempted to play a similar style tactic as we normally do but he unfortunately was dealing with a handful of players who couldn’t do so. The squad had their wits about them to keep the Hammers level but the performance was League One-esque and on another day, Burton would’ve won. You can chuck an inexperienced player in the first team and they can look good, but if you have a handful of inexperience, it can only mean one thing.
A tactic that was set up to win but formulated by the wrong players - LN
