Former West Ham manager Sam Allardyce.placeholder image
Former West Ham manager Sam Allardyce. | AFP via Getty Images
It was another corner that proved to be West Ham’s undoing on Friday night as Leeds United profited.
Former West Ham goalkeeper Rob Green has told the struggling Premier League side to return to an old Sam Allardyce tactic to fix their defensive woes this season.
The Hammers face a relegation battle this term after a dismal start to the campaign and haven’t been helped by the struggles to defend corners. Leeds United were the latest to profit from West Ham disorganisation with a corner.
Joe Rodon scored the hosts’ second from a corner in their 2-1 win on Friday night. That was the ninth goal that West Ham had conceded from a corner this season, six more than any other side at the time.
Rob Green on West Ham corner woes
Green spent six years at West Ham between 2006 and 2012, helping the side to promotion in his final season with the club. The shot-stopper, who also played for QPR and Leeds United, made a total of 241 appearances for the Hammers.
Speaking on Sky Sports after the game, the 45-year-old said: “There’s one thing they can go and do. Go and stand on the training pitch and do it over and over again. You do that every day until you’re sick in the teeth of it and you’re so bored, that you think, when it comes to a game - the one thing we are not doing is conceding from a corner. Because I don’t want to go out there next week and stand there day after day after day doing set pieces.
“That’s the only thing they can do. We did it under Sam Allardyce, he said ‘you’re not very good at this, we’re repeating, repeating, repeating’, that was at West Ham and it worked. You do it to repetition, to ad nauseum, and then you go out and you repeat on the pitch. Until they repeat it on the pitch, they are not giving themselves a chance.”
Sam Allardyce outlines relegation scrap blueprint
Sam Allardyce was in charge at West Ham between 2011 and 2015. During his career, the veteran was known for his no-nonsense football and relegation scraps.
Speaking to Sky Sports in 2017, Allardyce outlined his relegations scrap blueprint in quotes that back up Green’s opinion, and could be helpful to Nuno Espirito Santo. Big Sam said: "It comes from working on the training ground. Every week it's just a case of highlighting who we're playing against, what they try to do from set pieces, and who each player is going to mark.
"The players need to remember when you go out on the pitch that these are very important times in the game. I think on average more than 30 per cent of Premier League goals come from set plays now.
"If you don't coach it or show your players how to defend it then you can play as well as you want, you can be on top of the game as much as you want, but one set play can give the opposition the goal that gets them ahead."
In other news, Daniel Farke's comments on Leeds United situation show just how much trouble West Ham are in.
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