West Ham must address lack of pace in the squad

The current West Ham squad lacks many things at the moment, but a glaringly obvious issue that has started to rise over the past couple weeks is the alarming lack of pace this year’s team has.

When you think about the top Premier League sides at the moment (not West Ham), there is one big thing all the teams have in common. The pace in attack. Whether its Raheem Sterling for City, Salah and Mane for Liverpool, and even Vardy for Leicester, these top teams are able to attack with rapid players that can expose any defense on a counter-attack.

The Hammers need a bit of pace injected into their squad. When you think of West Ham’s current team, the only players with any kind of pace going forward are Felipe Anderson and Michail Antonio.

Although these are arguably two of the Hammer’s top players, both can cause problems for opposing back-lines on the counter-attack and have shown why they deserve a place in the starting XI.

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Too many of Manuel Pellegrini’s players simply lack the pace and athleticism to keep up with some of the Premier Leagues best. Robert Snodgrass and Andrii Yarmolenko are skilled players who can curl one in at any time, and pick out a pass to anyone on the pitch.

However, both these players lack the pace to keep up with other wingers in the league, and this is massively hurting them on the pitch. Even players like Fornals, Haller, and Lanzini are not going to beat you with pace. I think this is a huge problem for this year’s West Ham squad.

When you do not have enough pace on the pitch, It does not allow you to stretch out the field and break out on the counter, which is where the Hammers have been struggling this season. The Irons have also failed to contain some rapid attackers this year.

Adama Traore was ripping up and down the field against the Hammers with nobody to challenge him, where other wingers such as Allan Saint-Maximin and Heung-Min Son have had no problems with the Hammers this year.

It is clear to me that this year’s West Ham squad will heavily struggle to defend against pacy players on the outside. This, combined with the fact that the Hammers lack pace in their own attack, is making it harder and harder for them to keep clean sheets, and score goals.

I think the board needs to take a long and hard look at some January targets who could help this West Ham squad get a bit quicker.