Despite the needed win coming in the nick of time for West Ham and Manuel Pellegrini, the saved manager doesn’t deserve any credit for the Hammers three points.
No praise and no credit due to Manuel Pellegrini after this win. Yes, it was vital for West Ham to go down to Southampton and pick up three points, but was a narrow 1-0 win with multiple wasted chances by the Saints really the coup that Pellegrini has been planning to save his manager position and the team?
By praising Pellegrini for playing a 4-4-2 you’re essentially proving every Twitter comedian that tweeted out ‘oh Pellegrini makes £7m a year? Pay me £1m and I’ll manage the team’ because in the reported final game provided to him before his sack he used the formation every Hammer fan has been crying out for since we googled Sebastien Haller this summer.
And, for everyone screaming at the board for not following up on their promise of next-level football, why not put any blame on Pellegrini for barely getting a result at Southampton? Yes, the three points were secured, but Danny Ings narrowly missed a bomb shot off the crossbar, Shane Long nailed the post, and Ings later nailed a shot in the back of the net that was called back on a soft foul. Is this the inspired football we were all expecting?
The chances were there for the Saints yet West Ham weathered the storm… barely. A massive issue in this game as well were the substitutions made by Pellegrini. Andriy Yarmolenko was brought in to chase speedster Moussa Djenepo, Carlos Sanchez replaced Haller to pack the midfield, and Issa Diop replaced Mark Noble and played has the third center back.
All three of these were tactically inept decisions. Yarmolenko needs to stay committed forward to be effective; if the game plan as to cede possession and chase play he was the wrong choice, especially with Djenepo getting switched to the right side. Sanchez gave the ball away three times with massive chances coming off of his horrible play. And, Diop wasn’t sharp on the backline having been kept out of the starting XI for weeks.
Yet, people want to welcome Pellegrini back into the fold and forget that the Irons are 2-1-7 in their last ten matches. This win, much like the Chelsea win, papers over the tactical cracks from Pellegrini and clouds needed judgment on the manager. A change is needed and quickly, West Ham can’t survive with a stone-age manager in modern football.