No More Moral Victories for West Ham

West Ham’s first month under Manuel Pellegrini has come to a close and the team is 0-0-4 and sits alone at the bottom of the Premier League table. The time for excuses has expired and so to has the time for moral victories; just win, West Ham.

It’s pretty much as bad as it could be for West Ham, they enter the international break without a point and on the back of a bitter ending to their second home game. The Carlos Sanchez giveaway that led to a 93rd-minute goal pretty much summed up West Ham’s season so far; players making mistakes and bone-headed plays that essentially self-destruct their chances at winning.

No more moral victories.

In every match, there has been an excuse for West Ham’s poor play. For Liverpool, it was the Champions League runners-up plus £100 million of investment at Anfield to start the season. For the Bournemouth loss at home it was harder to justify, but the players, of course, need time to gel as a unit under a new manager and it was chalked up to a new team not knowing each other well enough yet. For Arsenal, it was a strong performance and everyone seemed to believe West Ham deserved all three points in their away 3-1 loss to the Gunners but okay individual performances seemingly bought the team some time.

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0-1 to Wolves at home on an extra time giveaway goal? No more excuses. It starts up top with the attack. Despite Arnautovic being the only clicking member of West Ham’s forward group, he needs to convert the shot that concussed Rui Patricio. I’m not willing to give him credit on not scoring that chance because he is the only player to score for West Ham this season, that muddies the waters of a striker’s role – take your chances when you get them, even if you’re the only one getting them.

Outside of Arnie, West Ham’s forward issues can be summarized and fixed by this statement – play the role you were brought in to play. For Pellegrini and his system that means your passers should pass and your runners should run. The Chilean engineer has not had his football-managing skills drop off a cliff since his Chinese pay-day (despite what the twitter doom merchants will tell you) but the players are confused on the pitch.

The players on the pitch should have distinct roles and I assume they do, but, for example, when it comes to Fredericks he is clouded in what he should be doing. Fredericks is a flat out sprinter who can expose a team by blowing by their entire squad down the wing. Stick to crosses and a few short passes instead of stopping your momentum in midfield to pass the ball and spring attacking runs, as he tried and failed to do against Wolves.

The opposite goes for Yarmolenko. He came on as a right winger but was constantly running through the central midfield to get the ball then retreating to the right side to try and create.

Stop, just stop.

Yarmolenko should be the man who gets the ball and decides what everyone else does with it – ball over the top to Arnie? Send Fredericks in on an overlap? Find Anderson on the edge of the box? Maybe just crank a looking curler towards the net! He needs to stick to what he does best and distribute, not run across the pitch retrieving the ball.

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The lack of success West Ham has had is at a player level. If the players stick to their roles and continue to do what they do well there will be ACTUAL victories to celebrate, not just moral ones.