It’s the first midweek lull of the season, and West Ham find themselves propping up the rest of the table. But after playing Liverpool away first game, the only way from here is up.
After the chaos of the transfer window, and the excitement of the opening week of the Premier League, the first midweek always comes as an anti climax. With no European games or Premier League cup involvement there’s no real news surrounding West Ham to come out. So let’s take stock of where we’re going.
I know that Liverpool away is probably one of the 2 or 3 toughest fixtures of the season, but I was hoping to not be bottom of the Premier League already. I know it’s completely irrelevant at this point of the year, but it does make poor reading whenever I do glance at the Premier League site. However this should represent the low point of the season, and there’s only positives from here.
New Signings
After 5 new signings started at the weekend, and one more came on in the second half, it’s fair to say that a lot of our progress this season will depend on how they integrate into the side and adapt to the Premier League. But to judge them on a single match at one of the most intimidating grounds in the league is probably not fair.
I think this week ahead, now they’ve had time to adjust and take stock, will be very telling. Pre-season training is all excitement and discovery, but after the first match there will be a lot of analysis and I think the work will sink in. Fredericks will be watching tapes of what went wrong down his side, Anderson will be aware he will get less time and space in this league than he did in Italy and Wilshere will be doing everything he can to get back up to speed.
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For Fabianski this will be another game and more training. He has been here before behind worse defences, and I think he experience will be vital to a new defensive line. With a lot of younger new signings, who are new to the league, Pellegrini will need leadership where he has it in the squad.
The Manager
For the big man in charge, this will be a case of stick or twist. Many copaches would be tempted to make wholesale changes because the side just didn’t perform. However Pellegrini won’t have picked the side for a single week, but to hope that side could grow into the team he wants it to be.
However he will have worked out this isn’t like taking over at City. Or even Malaga. At City he had a top side anyway, and there was not as much work to do. At Malaga he took over midseason, so a different mentality was present by the time he had gone through his first pre-season with the club. There are a lot of unknowns in East London for the Engineer, but I trust he will work them out.
As we sit here looking forward to the weekend, the squad will be working hard. With the Anfield game mostly a blur for the side, we’re unlikely to see too many intra-squad storylines at the moment. This team needs time to really gel, but once they do I can’t imagine there will be many times this season we’ll be in the bottom half, let alone at the bottom of the table.