Forum | General Discussion

A game of two halves,good first half performance ,Lanzini impressed again ,well supported by Zarate .Midfield could have been better at closing down as they do tend to give the opposition time on the ball in midfield,better opposition would have taken more of an advantage.Second half the team's performance took a nosedive and WBA took the ascendency,Pulis' halftime talk and readjustments made the difference,and it seemed Bilic didn't have the answers.Looking at the 4-2-3-1 system Bilic uses,it's the 4 front players that produce most of the goals and assists,namely Sakho,Moses,Lanzini,Zarate .For me Moses doesn't contribute enough in that department,he is not getting his share,and I think his place is up for grabs.Payet is a massive loss.Not knocking Moses as a player, some good skills,pacey but in the system the team plays he is coming up short,when it comes to assists and goals.Its a real shame Samuelsen was loaned out to Peterborough ,because he looked ready to step up to me as does Cullen,both can score goals and comfortable on the ball going forward,and both have great shots.As far as holding players are concerned still unsure.

You could have : Obiang/Song...Kouyate/Noble....Obiang/Noble....Song/Kouyate...Obiang/Kouyate....Noble/Song....or include another squad member ,like Oxford,who had a great game against Arsenal in that role.
Simply put,one of the holding players is more offensively oriented , takes care of the playmaking and secures the rear space behind number 10, if his team is in possession of the ball. The second holding player is mostly responsible for defensive tasks,effective at closing down and breaking up attacks,ensuring that he doesn't wonder so he doesn't get caught out of position.. Ideally, the two players swap their roles in the system of play time and time again, in order to become less predictable ,but both of these players FIRST PRIORITY is to protect the back four.This is where a lot of Westham's problems lie ,the defence gets left exposed(look at the Spurs game),the holding players have gone walkabouts ,and the closing down in midfield has gone to pot.Even in today's game against WBA they were allowed more and more time on the ball in midield because Westham's midfield were not closing down and breaking up opposition play effectively enough...
When it comes to the defence,I get the feeling Jenkinson's confidence has taken a hammering with his early season form ,in today's game it looked like he didn't want to do much with the ball just release it as quickly as possible and Cresswell is another who hasn't reached the heights of last season.All our central defenders are good players but they all seem to be prone to silly mistakes that have been costly recently ,it seems Tomkins is now in the spotlight and Bilic dropped him .I like Tomkins he works hard but can sometimes shoot himself in the foot with the silly mistakes he makes in games.
Overall this team without the main man Payet and the loss of Valencia,Song and maybe Sakho now after today's injury could have serious consequences on the season,because we are talking the teams best players here.Hopefully it won't be too long before Song reaches a good level of fitness to play at least 70mins,but without these players I can only see a struggle to get into the top ten.Maybe the board will see sense to invest in some more quality in January to keep up our European push,definitely need a top pacey striker.Who would you see as priority?