With a must-win match coming up against bottom of the table Norwich less than three days after their loss to Burnley, the West Ham squad is looking exhausted and error-prone and the manager doesn’t even seem to realize that he is at fault.
Heading into Project Restart one of the most widely discussed strengths of West Ham was the return to fitness of much of the squad and the depth it provided in comparison to the other clubs at the foot of the table.
Unfortunately, the man in charge doesn’t seem to share the perspective of most of the footballing world and has stubbornly refused to rotate his squad or even make substitutions when it is obvious that particular players are absolutely exhausted out on the pitch.
During the last 15 minutes of the Burnley match, the usually tireless Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek could barely get up and down the field. They are two of the most intelligent and hard-working members of the squad, but a manager cannot expect them to be game-changers when they reach that level of exhaustion.
And don’t even get me started on the Michail Antonio situation. West Ham would be absolutely lost without his work-rate and “unpredictability.” And yet Moyes seems to have little concern for protecting a player whose tireless efforts make him incredibly susceptible to hamstring injuries.
Mental errors, misplaced passes, lazy fouls. Even the best players become prone to them when they have simply played too much football. And that’s not even discussing what Ryan Fredericks and Aaron Cresswell are capable of when they reach that point.
Moyes has the audacity to complain about the congested fixture schedule yet defends his approach by stating “There aren’t teams making four or five changes, Spurs or Everton might make one or two, not many. Burnley don’t make any,” according to Sam Inkersole of Football.London.
But what the manager doesn’t seem to realize is that Burnley didn’t have to make many changes during the match against West Ham because they were defending wisely against a worn-out group of players. Moyes can make all the comparisons he wants, but nobody is criticizing Sean Dyche for his man-management after getting a result.
It’s absolutely frightening that everyone except the gaffer realizes that a position of strength for the Hammers has been made, in the words of Karren Brady, ‘null and void.’ And this brings us to the Norwich match.
They are a team with absolutely nothing to lose. With their backs against the wall they may come out with an energy level that West Ham will have to equal in the early stages and the last twenty minutes from Wednesday’s match suggests they may not be able to.
Unless Moyes finally decides to implement several changes to the starting line-up for the first time since football returned. But that creates another set of problems as a lack of game time for players like Jack Wilshere and Ben Johnson could limit their effectiveness.
The manager could have avoided a situation like this with some proper foresight and man management, but I genuinely feel that the Scot may trot out a similar squad to the one that faced Burnley and simply hope that will be enough to get the Hammers over the line.
It’s a dangerous approach for someone who is so conservative, and if it doesn’t work does David Moyes have the decisiveness to make his full range of substitutions to get the game under control? Time will tell, but the West Ham faithful can be forgiven for being uneasy.