Not time for West Ham to fire manager, but Pellegrini must adapt

15 Weeks after being hired on at West Ham United and Manuel Pellegrini already appears to be failing at some of the most basic of managerial tasks.

I have been covering professional and major collegiate sport for 25 years. One thing I have learned in that time is that there are basic responsibilities of a Manager or Head Coach regardless of sport, team or league.

They are required to get their teams fit; prepare them to be ready to play; develop and adopt tactics that fit the personnel they have on hand; determines who plays, when and how long and in-game management.

Football is no different. The job of West Ham Manager is no different.

If a manager falls short in any of those primary duties, then the chances are his team won’t perform well on the field. Ultimately if that failure continues or if there are failures in multiple areas, it will cost him his job.

Manuel Pellegrini came to the club with a big resume, pedigree and the trophies to go with both. So much so, by many accounts, he was either fully in charge or at least had great influence in this summer’s transfer business. He also had a direct hand in the hiring of a Director of Football. That could be deemed as backward, but that’s for another debate.

But removing the history from Pellegrini and just viewing his job performance based on “what have you done for me lately”, its clear something or many things are lacking with his leadership of the club so far. The good news is, that there is still time to turn it around. It is going to take work. Seems like a bad time to jet off to Chile or give the players time away during the current international break, but that’s just what he’s done.

Pellegrini has been in charge of the club for 4 league matches, a cup tie, and 7 pre-season friendlies. He has five wins from 12. We all know what the Premier League results and the table looks like at the moment.

Outside of that 3-1 win over Aston Villa in pre-season the club has looked anywhere from pedestrian to downright outclassed, regardless of the result. Why?

It starts on the training pitch.

An apparent lack of a consistent game plan.

The Hammers don’t look like they’ve been prepared to play in any of the games yet. There’s been plenty of talk about the summer signings and the team needing time to gel–but that time is done. Pellegrini hasn’t helped the new players gel by changing the side in every single game while searching for his ‘best XI’. The Manager’s job is to prepare his team to play, to communicate to them what to expect from opponents and what the game plan will be going into the match. He must explain the fundamental keys to earning the desired result that week. So far, the club doesn’t play like there is any clue as to what the game plan is, or how to execute it. Individual players aren’t playing in roles that they are accustomed to or perhaps more importantly, in roles that suit their particular skills.

Record signing Filip Anderson has played mostly on the left. Against Arsenal it was in a more free-roaming central role and against Wolves, he appeared to start centrally then drift out to the left. This is something the manager has to see and address. Or he shouldn’t play.

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Jack Wilshire is best as a more attacking midfielder and was told that as part of his recruitment to the club. So far he has not played in that role. Instead, he’s been in a role more akin to Mark Noble’s.

And what to make of Declan Rice so far? Runner-up for Hammer of the Year last year as a central defender. The Irish International (or is English?) has played midfield in those matches and excelled. He also played that again in the League Cup match. But he can’t seem to find his way back onto the pitch in a Premier League game.

And that brings us to tactics.

The Manager’s job is to figure out his personnel and then adapt any system, formation or tactics to best fit the team he is working with. In a perfect world, every club would play beautiful attacking football and rack up three points a week doing so week in and week out. But not every club is Man City or Liverpool. And so if that IS the style Pellegrini want’s to employ here, fine. But then where are the goals? We should be losing track meet games 3-2 or 4-3 every week. But you can’t play that way if the team is not fit enough to do so even as a starting point for that style.

Much has been written about Pellegrini’s preferred formation of some variation of 4-4-2 or 4-2-2-2 or even 4-2-3-1. Two questions must be asked about the Irons playing in this system: Is the personnel on hand suited to these tactics? And if they were, would it be so hard for the Gaffer to have found his best XI four weeks into the campaign?

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Back to Moyes. At times it wasn’t pretty, but the 3-4-3 (and maybe even once or twice a 5-4-1) worked for the club. Under Bilic, the club had the players, particularly Payet and Lanzini to make the 4-2-3-1 work. I understand Pellegrini has never played a three at the back system, but if the manager’s job is to choose tactics based on the players available then maybe after 0 points from the first four games it is time to consider it here. If he doesn’t want to consider three at the back then maybe he should back off the idea that the club can’t play a high line defensively. Much like last season, the Hammers are last in the Premiership in GA. What is the Manager going to do to stop the bleeding?

Yet all of this doesn’t fall only at the feet of Pellegrini.

Let’s add the players into the equation and consider for a moment that Pellegrini IS doing a great job on the training pitch and in the locker room of getting his players fit, explaining the system he wants to run and how to run it. Well then, if it’s not showing up during games then the Manager does control who plays, when they play and for how long.

If the players simply aren’t able to or don’t want to execute his plan and strategy then why are they playing? If they aren’t closing down on the ball, why are they playing? When they don’t track back, why are they playing? If they don’t sprint, why are they playing? If they aren’t performing the role the Manager wants them to play, why are they playing?

That falls under the heading of the Manager controlling who plays. It also means Pellegrini has to use his in-game substitutions to send messages if needed. When it comes to in-game tactics he also needs to show something that neither Moyes nor Bilic seemed to be able to do with any regularity: have a plan “B” ready to implement within the game when things aren’t going well on either end of the pitch.

So the buck does stop at Manuel Pellegrini’s office door or technical area.

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The road from here does not get immediately easier with matches away at Everton and home against Manchester United. With a League Cup match sprinkled in for good measure.

Over the preseason and last month the cries of “In Pellegrini we Trust” have been heard often and loudly. Ok. Let’s trust Pellegrini. But let’s trust and verify. Let’s trust him and hold this big time Manager with a big-time resume accountable to the big time supporter base of this big time club.

We need the manager to manage this club. To demand effort and desire from his players. To put them into the best position to succeed with this squad as currently constructed. And to generate positive results and points. While it’s too early to have a silly reaction and call to change the Manager, the call is in for the Manager to change the way he is going about doing this job. COYI!

Not Time to Change the Manager, but Manuel Pellegrini Must Change

By Jeff Catlin | Sep 5, 2018