West Ham fans woke up this morning with a sense of Déjà vu, once again they’d seen their team put in a lackluster away performance in the Europa League, losing 2-1 to the third best side in Slovenia NK Domžale.
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West Ham went behind due to a penalty that was extremely harshly awarded, and leveled from the spot themselves shortly after.West Ham’s penalty was more of a certain thing, with the Slovenian team’s No.1 clearing Winston Reid out in an effort to get to the ball after a West Ham set piece.
The second Slovenian goal was much better, with their left winger getting free down our right hand side (a common theme of the evening) and found space against Nordtveit to fire low past Adrian.
It was West Ham’s first competitive appearance of the season and Bilic would have been keen to get off to a good start, however the players appeared to be on holiday still as they lacked energy and motivation to even create serious scoring opportunities.
It might have been hard for players to get psyched up given they went straight from their pre-season to the Europa League match, and playing in a half empty stadium (at best) is never going to boost the effort levels.
This is where I stop trying to be nice.
Not since last season at the same stage have a seen the West Ham players care less about a game, and they barely seemed to want to put in any effort during the game. Players looked miles out of position and like they’d never played with each other, with passes flying all over the place and people running into the same positions as each other.
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Antonio is not a good enough right back as of yet, if ever, and if a Slovenian league side can pick out that weakness I truly fear what will happen against Chelsea in a few weeks. He was at fault for the second goal and our defensive midfielders were not defensive enough to be able to plug these gaps. If we play attacking full backs, one of the central midfielders (Nordtveit/Obiang should have this role imo) needs to be able to cover a break out wide. We were over-committed in the wrong way.
Rumours this morning point to West Ham selling Enner Valencia to Galatasaray for £12m, which given the ability on display last night is a great deal for us. Carroll put more effort in getting out wide and getting the ball back, and highlighted the work rate we needed to show.
Next week I think keep Adrian in goal, but start Byram in his favoured right back position longside Burke and Reid in the centre and Page on the left. I am not a fan of Nordtveit at CB, I think he is better in CDM.
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In the pivot CDM roles of Bilic’s 4-2-3-1 I would play Noble and either Kouyate/Obiang. Kouyate and Noble both naturally get forward when possible so can leave full backs open, but Byram and Page are less attacking than Antonio so we won’t be left open too much.
Feghouli, Samuelson and Antonio should make up the attacking 3 in this formation. Antonio is naturally a winger and we’d be better off putting him in as such and spending on a right back. Feghouli still looks like a great acquisition and Samuelson is full of tricks and offers something different. Him or Quina would be good in this position, and I feel the youth players will give them more energy in the ‘lower profile’ games.
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We must be better next week, even if it’s just to get our start at our new home off to a decent start, but it would be truly disappointing to fall at the same stage as we did last season. There will be a lot of expectant fans next week, so hopefully the atmosphere will drive them on to better things.