With the transfer window now closed and West Ham having to ‘cope with the squad they have’, recriminations and rumblings continue after Saturday’s capitulation against Chelsea’s second half onslaught. Another three points dropped from a winning position puts the Hammers in serious jeopardy and at the end of a frantic weekend, sees the ‘safety’ gap stretched to six points.
Nuno Espirito Santo is taking the flack for the change of tactics – and formation – that led to two of Chelsea’s goals as West Ham moved away from an offensive ‘defend from the front’ set up by bringing on a centre back for an attacker and adopting Nuno’s favourite (yet shockingly poor) three centre-back deployment.
Criticism looks to have come from inside the West Ham squad as well as from outside. Tomas Soucek, on whufc.com, appears to take aim at his own coach with his clear summing up of where West Ham stumbled:
“We have to go for counter-attacks again as to score a third goal would be important, but we can’t concede three goals, because it’s sometimes too easy.
“That’s the mentality we should have [to score a third goal], because the best defence is to attack, so that’s what we want, but sometimes when we are winning we go too much to defence..”
Most Read on West Ham News
Exactly so, Tomas. You me and apparently every Hammers fan at Stamford bridge knew it. Seemingly the only one who read it different was the West Ham coach. Fifteen points now lost from winning positions under Nuno. And that has to change.