Green Street Hammers
Fansided

Diangana and Snodgrass aggression unlocked Felipe Anderson in Burnley win

By Scott Johnson

LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 03: Felipe Anderson of West Ham United celebrates after scoring his team's second goal with Marko Arnautovic of West Ham United during the Premier League match between West Ham United and Burnley FC at London Stadium on November 3, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 03: Felipe Anderson of West Ham United celebrates after scoring his team's second goal with Marko Arnautovic of West Ham United during the Premier League match between West Ham United and Burnley FC at London Stadium on November 3, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images) /
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West Ham scored 4 goals in a league game for the first time this season, despite two big players missing. But Noble and Yarmolenko weren’t a miss for the Hammers, and their replacements were key in unlocking Anderson.

Although Felipe Anderson got the plaudits for West Ham at the weekend, football is a team game. Yes you can get generational talents dominating matches by themselves, but it’s often facilitated by the work of others. This was definitely the case for the Irons in this weekends match.

Although Noble and Yarmolenko were expected to be a big miss for the Hammers, their replacements created all the chaos needed for Anderson to be so electric. Diangana, as an orthodox right winger, shifted the Burnley defence to their left. And Snodgrass, playing as the most advanced central midfielder, supported Arnautovic and offered another way for the ball to be moved in the attacking third. The result? Anderson have 3 or 4 great opportunities to grab a goal.

If you listen to our podcast you will know that I am a sceptical lover of stats. That is I want them to be significant, but I know enough about them to understand they rarely mean a lot in the actual game. But there is some interested analysis from redmanalaytics on twitter below.

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You can see that Anderson, after being slammed for not tracking back, had a fairly defensive position. On the other side Diangana was actually our furthest forward player. When Yarmolenko plays his natural position is a bit deeper as that allows him to use his left foot more often. Diangana’s willingness to go outside the left back really opened that side out.

In the middle Snodgrass filled the hole we’ve been crying out for. He occupied the middle just behind Arnautovic, and when the Austrian wanted to drop deeper to get the ball Snodgrass went past. When Lanzini is back this is the role he will take, and this was a real glimpse at what we can do when it comes together. At the moment, when Noble returns, I think he takes Obiang’s place, not Snodgrass’s. That is, if he walks back into the side.

It was a really good all round performance and in truth we could have won by more. I think there’s a lot to come from the Hammers under Pellegrini and with a relatively simple run of matches over December there could be a strong upward trajectory for the boys in Claret and Blue. Can we push up into the top 10?