Although West Ham was able to avoid back to back losses, they still lacked the finish needed to get all 3 points against Sheffield United.
Not clinical enough, unorganized, and unmotivated have been some of the words used to describe West Ham during this streak of 4 matches without a win. New verbiage that might now become a regular thing is focused around their lack of ability to finish the match.
Coming into this match there was no surprise that Pellegrini made 5 changes from the Hammers last week out against Everton where they lost 2-0. The most notable of the changes came in the form of Robert Snodgrass who gave the Hammers the lead just before the half.
As the second half moved on and West Ham kept coming close but couldn’t put it away, you could almost sense something coming from Sheffield United. That sense turned to reality during the second half when Lys Mousset got a good bounce and in turn bounced it past Roberto to tie the match up.
Since the start of the 2019/20 campaign, this has, as the title conveyed, become a trend. The before mentioned Sheffield match was the 4th time this season that the Hammers gave up and dropped points.
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Go back just 2 matches ago when the Hammers lost to Crystal Palace, and there you see it again. Sebastien Haller put the Hammers up in the second half only to see that lead lost and then the match lost before the 90 minutes were up. Up next, Bournemouth.
In the Bournemouth match, Andriy Yarmolenko put West Ham up early only to see the Cherries put back to back goals up by the midway point in the second half. Luckily for the Hammers, Aaron Cresswell was able to send in the equalizer before the end of the match to salvage a point.
The start of West Ham’s inability to finish a match came on matchday 2 away at Brighton. After a boring first half, Chicharito scored a beauty from the box only to immediately equaled out by Leandro Trossard’s goal to see the match out 1 all.
The main issue is the ability to finish the match, but an even bigger story according to Football.London is that West Ham has lost 9 points from winning positions so far this season. That point difference would’ve seen the Hammers sitting 3rd instead of their current spot in 10th.
Going back to the beginning of this article it was mentioned that Pellegrini made 5 changes to the Hammers side this past weekend but with similar results. So, is there a solution? Can there be a resilience shown from the players and the staff?
These are hard questions that need to be answered. It won’t be easy as the EPL is tough enough already even before only gaining 1 point between Palace, Everton, and Sheffield United. As the fan base is slowly splitting between Pellegrini in/out, this change will need to happen sooner than later.