Right Then, What The Hell Are West Ham Up To?
The Hammers came into last season on a big old wave of optimism. They’d beaten Manchester United in their final game at Upton Park, Winston Reid with the late winner. A seventh place finish didn’t quite reflect how good they’d been after they’d had themselves challenging for the Champions League places with a month or two to go. Still, they bagged a Europa League spot and in Dimitri Payet they had one of the most exciting players in the world. Massive new stadium ready to move into for 2016-17… the good times were on the way back.
Hahaha, no. They definitely were not. West Ham lost 1-0 at home to stumble out of the Europa qualifiers against Astra Giurgiu and would lose five of their first six Premier League matches. By the middle of the season Dimitri Payet was demanding a transfer back to Marseille. He got his wish. The new stadium saw all sorts of issues, from crowd behaviour to match day procedures, and all of this bled into a sloppy defence and an injury-prone attack. And please, please don’t mention the midfield.
So fair to say there was some work to do in order to get this club back on track. Start of the transfer window and that didn’t look the case, however. While they certainly needed a new striker, rumours of Olivier Giroud and Kelechi Iheanacho seemed pretty ambitious. Might Jack Wilshere be available? Sure, but maybe stop swinging for the fences on these things and just get yourself a reliable midfielder who won’t cost a bomb and who might even help you win a few games. Wilshere can be that but a backup plan would be advisable. Typical bloody West Ham, aye?
Except then they went and signed Joe Hart on loan from Manchester City. Now, Harty ain’t the best goalie in the world. He’s not been the same these last couple years and in all fairness he shouldn’t really be the England number one when Fraser Forster is proving a whole lot more dependable, not to mention the emerging talents of Jordan Pickford and Jack Butland. Even Torino admitted they didn’t expect to be taking on such an error-prone lad last season. But for a team like West Ham this is a fine signing. They get a player with a big-game mentality and something to prove. They get him on the cheap with City ready to pay most of his wages. They fill a desperate need in their squad with Darren Randolph and Adrian scrapping poorly for those gloves in 16-17. Best of all they finally attracted a major name to their club after swinging and missing on so many.
Hart’s arrival has meant Randolph’s been sold to Middlesbrough, understandably. They’ve also released Enner Valencia and had Alvaro Arbeloa retire while loaning Reece Oxford to Borussia Monchengladbach and selling Havard Nordtveit to Hoffenheim. Valencia was out on loan last season anyway, his time at the club was already up. Oxford going out on loan is a funny one, especially to Germany, but if he’s successful there then he’ll be back for a first team spot soon enough.
Arbeloa and Nordtveit are more important departures. Both were signed in the hope that they could solve their horrid run of right backs… neither were worth much. Nordtveit isn’t even a RB, he’s a midfielder, but in 21 total games he did nothing that suggested he was worth his place in the team. Coincidentally they’d picked him up on a free from Borussia, where Oxford is now headed. As for Arbeloa, he was meant to be a safe and experienced alternative… and he only started one PL game all season.
Tellingly West Ham’s top league goal-scorer last season was Michail Antonio who was also often tasked with trying to plug that whole at right back. Yikes.
If you need to place a specific blame on what happened last season, that’s probably where you wanna start. The London Stadium thing gets the headlines but stuff was already going sour when you look at who they’d signed and, with hindsight (that old bastard), what they were gonna get for them.
Simone Zaza? Best forget that one. Jonathan Calleri? Pretty awful, to be blunt. Havard Nordtveit we’ve already mentioned, Alvaro Arbeloa too. Gokhan Tore sure didn’t last long. Ashley Fletcher is a project player, Edmilson Fernandes and Sofiane Feghouli had a couple moments. Andre Ayew was a club record transfer and he was decent when fit. Arthur Masuaku is still a depth player at best right now. That is not the kind of business that’s gonna take you up the table. Literally none of those players, except possibly Fernandes, exceeded their expectations in their first season and five of them aren’t even at the club any longer.
Compare that to the haul a year earlier that gained them Dimitri Payet, Angelo Ogbonna, Michail Antonio, Pedro Obiang, Darren Randolph and Manuel Lanzini and you can see what an impact a positive transfer window can make. Unfortunately for the Hammers under the guidance of Sullivan and Gold this has not exactly been the norm. Take, for example, the plight of their strikers.
Now, Andy Carroll is a killer when he’s fit. That’s a pretty large ‘when’ though. The plethora of alternative options don’t exactly shine a favourable light on the West Ham scouting team either.
That’s not even including the crap ones who couldn’t get on the park either. But while fans had every reason to panic over yet another summer of stupid striker signings, the dude they ended up with… is this bloke. Ol’ Chicharito! Tell you what, it’s not easy to come up with much criticism over this one and especially not at that price.
Strange to say this about West Ham but that seems like a well-considered and intelligent bit of transfer business. They’ve also plumped large on Marko Arnautovic from Stoke who breaks the Ayew record for their biggest outgoing fee and Pablo Zabaleta has signed on a free from Man City. A right back, rejoice!
Of course, Zabaleta was released from City for a reason. Plenty of players have left top clubs at this stage of their careers and seen their motivation drop, seen their performances suffer and seen their careers trail off towards the horizon. It’s way too early to call this an open goal but they’re giving themselves a better chance than they have in the last few years. Arnautovic has attitude issues that have followed him around but he’s also capable of creating some special goals. Not sure what that means for Robert Snodgrass who signed midseason to fill a similar role only to see his brilliant form with Hull take a full 180 with WHU. There seems to be a pattern in the Premier League these days though: you can never have too many creative midfielders.
Supposing that all brings a few more goals to the team and supposing that the defensive quartet of Winston Reid, Jose Fonte, James Collins and Angelo Ogbonna aren’t horrifically exposed for their lack of pace (and the inconsistencies on their defensive flanks) and supposing they do get themselves a proper midfielder, be it Jack Wilshere or whoever, then… yeah. That defence improved in a three-man system towards the end of the season, which also helps the fullback thing, although of the ten clean sheets they kept in the Premier League only one came with Winston Reid (who missed a quarter of the season all up) out of the line-up.
Every team needs some injury luck though. All up the Hammers have turned what first appeared another overly aspiring offseason into something both flashy and also pragmatic, filling their specific and desperate needs with real quality. Sorta gotta admit that West Ham are doing a fairly good job of this thing after all. Who woulda thunk it?
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