Hammers Small Light In Gloomy Tunnel
West Ham fans suffered a miserable defeat in a blistering cold 15:00 kick-off against Crystal Palace.
Individual mistakes, comical errors and incorrect tactics all resulted in us not even having a shot on target, all in all, woeful performance and match.
If Hammers fans look past the dreadful result itself, some questions need to be raised, that performance should’ve screamed to the board that signings need to be made, and not having a shot on target exclaims that.
The fans have suffered enough seeing Fulkrug, Summerville and Bowen out. But when we go a goal down in a game, we look to our bench and currently only have Danny Ings to try to make an impact.
Ingsy can only provide so much, and in the current situation the squad is in, we need a lot more than just him.
There were very few positives from the match, hardly any in fact. Fabianski had one of his worst performances in his time at the club, giving away the penalty initially, and following it up with a blunder once trying to make the save.
The cherry on top would come before the game was put to bed through the penalty, Mavropanos made a last-ditch tackle which can only be described as simply ludicrous, the high foot challenge saw the Greek international acquire a second yellow card, leaving West Ham down to 10 with 10 minutes to go.
Konstantinos Mavropanos will now miss West Ham’s next game against Aston Villa at Villa Park.
Perhaps this is a delusion, but sometimes moments and opportunities like these for players can make their career. With the suspension of Mavro, it would be assumed that Potter will now turn to Kaelan Casey, our young central defender, who has appeared on the bench since Potter’s arrival.
But it's not all doom and gloom! Lewis Orford also made his West Ham debut, coming on for Emerson in the 56th minute, a proud achievement for the 18-year-old who spoke to the media earlier this season exclaiming how his goal for the new season was to break into the first team and finally make his very well deserved debut.
The smallest of lights we have glowing in the club currently is the promising youth prospects we have for next season, talents such as Earthy, Marshall and Potts will return in the summer, with the likes of Casey, Scarles and Orford already being prepped by Potter for the season to come.
A productive rebuild with the youth is what is needed, and it's what our fans have been crying out for, Hammers fans have desperately wanted a manager to utilise the youth academy and, instead of persistently buying players for mass money, maybe realise that we could have a hidden gem of our own under our noses.
We had a summer rebuild under Lopetegui, which didn't go too well... let's hope the one under Potter is more successful.
