West Ham flop against Arsenal signals why Pellegrini must go

10 games ago a Pellegrini led West Ham fired their way to a comfortable 2-0 win over Manchester United. In the 11 games since, including a league cup clash with Oxford, we only managed a single win. That is the bottom of the table form.

When it comes to manager sackings, I tend to call for more patience. Players go in and out of form and sometimes runs can go against you. But with Pellegrini we have seen a West Ham side not even getting close to the opposition, scoring goals despite the way we play and not because of it, and leaking goals left right and center. It’s beyond poor form, and it’s moved into hopelessness.

We talked on the podcast about a specific time you knew it was up for Pellegrini, and in my eyes, it wasn’t a single match, but the period between the Oxford loss and the capitulation against Newcastle. Because it revealed a manager without a plan, just hoping that the players would dig him out of the poor form. In my eyes, Pellegrini should not have been in charge to take on Chelsea or Wolves, they should have been ‘free shot’ matches for a new manager.

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So against an Arsenal side so badly out of form that the previously free-flowing Aubameyang was goal-shy and a defense that looked as though they’d never had the ball at their feet before, we still managed to only score from the aftermath of a corner. I think most other Premier League sides would have been 2 or 3 up by the end of the half given how poor Arsenal was. But we lacked a plan or structure, and the longer the game went on, the more obvious that was.

So when Arsenal score 3 in 9 minutes, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. As soon as they got the confidence they realized they could play the ball pretty much anywhere they wanted without pressure from our players, and our full-backs were hopelessly exposed against aggressive wing play. The biggest surprise was probably that we didn’t concede further, because it was clear that Pellegrini didn’t know what to change.

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We need a change in management, and that has been apparent for a while. However, we are now clinging on and expecting change where there hasn’t been a sign of that in a few months. Pellegrini is already making plans post West Ham, and the club needs to be making plans post Pellegrini.