da gbg bet： It’s been an odd season at the Boleyn Ground. The Hammers fans have never warmed to Sam Allardyce as boss, they’ve been less than seduced by his direct tactics and what they perceive as unsophisticated, maybe even flat-out boring football.
da heads bet： But right up until around Christmas time, they looked on course for a run at the Champions League spots or at least a European fight. They were playing some fairly decent football with Diafra Sakho and Enner Valencia up front, and Stewart Downing even earned an England call-up for his efforts at the tip of the diamond. The fans may not like to admit it, but that was a tactical master-stroke from Big Sam.
And then Andy Carroll came back and Sam reverted to type – the big man up front leading the line. The diamond was dead and West Ham hit a slump in form that they can’t get out of.
Yet they might still make Europe. A Big Sam team with Kevin Nolan in it might make it into Europe via the fair play table – odd isn’t it? Even odder is that their competitors for this European post are an Everton side including Gareth Barry, the player who has the most yellow cards in Premier League history.
So it’s been a strange season, but with West Ham failing to challenge for Europe via their league position, some things never change.
The change in system, along with the injuries that Allardyce has had to put up with this season have probably been the major factors for the drop off in form. Carroll came back and he scored four goals in 10 games, which isn’t terrible, though it’s hardly setting the world on fire given that he’s a striker who’s amassed more than £50million in transfer fees.
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Still, to have to keep changing your squad isn’t ideal. Yet the system can only do so much. At some point you have to stop talking tactics and start talking about the heart and passion of the players.
That’s something Big Sam teams have been known for – what Bolton lacked in quality and sophistication, they made up for in heart.
Yet this West Ham team haven’t really done that this season. If you’re playing as well as they did at the start of the season it doesn’t really matter, but when you start to lose games and when you start to find yourself off form, that’s when you really need to dig in.
West Ham fans don’t particularly like Big Sam, but everyone would agree that you can’t go through an entire season just playing beautiful football. Sometimes you need to man the trenches and defend, you need to get stuck in and grind out results. And that’s something West Ham haven’t actually done this year.
And the proof is the fact that they’re anywhere near the top of the fair play league.
I’m not saying that teams should be dirty. Or that you can’t have a good season without being prone to the odd dirty tackle or professional foul. But there will probably come a point in every season where you need to take a yellow to stop a break for example. And sometimes it just shows that you’re up for it if you fly into a tackle.
Everton and West Ham, two teams who have had poor seasons and two teams who are high in the fair play table. That’s not a complete coincidence.
There are several reasons for a slump in form. One is tiredness, Everton have had lots of games and lots of travel. That might be a reason for their slump, and when you’re tired, perhaps the will to be competitive in every game fades.
Another is upset in the dressing room, maybe the players aren’t playing for the team or the manager any more. Things can get into the heads of the players, and perhaps they’ll lose a competitive edge as a result of that. That sort of psychology shouldn’t come into play, but it often does.
Perhaps another still is when systems change. Carroll came back into the team and played in a different manner to Sakho and Valencia. Maybe that’s one reason for West Ham’s dip in form. And when there’s any sort of slump, perhaps it’s almost like a depression hanging over the club, where the players just can’t get up for games any more.
So the form of West Ham and Everton might have to do with many reasons. But one symptom of poor form is a lack of a competitive edge on the pitch. The good disciplinary record is not a reason for poor form, it’s a symptom of it. But it’s still worrying.
It’s too late to do anything about it, though. If they start now, they’ll perhaps lose a place in next season’s Europa League. But it’s almost like a pity prize.
They’ve lost their form, lost their competitiveness and somehow they could be rewarded with a place in Europe.
Could you imagine just how angry Roy Keane would be if he were a West Ham player? The phrase ‘a little bit soft’ springs to mind. That doesn’t sound particularly East London to me.
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