It doesn’t take much to score a goal against West Ham United. It happens in every game – and sometimes it happens over, and over, and over again, all in the same game. At the time of writing, West Ham have conceded 19 league goals in just 11 games.
This is the joint fourth-worst amount of goals conceded in the Premier League. We’re tied with Southampton, a team in the relegation zone, and two of the clubs with worse goal differences currently make up the rest of the bottom three. It’s a damning reality that West Ham are conceding their way towards bottom-dwelling for the remainder of the season – with the only saving grace for avoiding the Championship being that there are teams (somehow) performing even more poorly than we are.
The Hammers currently sit in 14th place in the table and don’t seem to be looking upwards after a patchy, inconsistent, and frustrating start to a Premier League season in which many fans expected them to soar. The one saving grace is that although we’re conceding as if it’s going out of fashion, we are managing to score at the other end, giving us a goal difference of minus six.
This sets us slightly further apart from our relegation-threatened chums, but it also provides a disappointing report card for how the Hammers have fared with their new manager and new signings. Gameweek 10 in the 2023/24 season saw us in better stead. We were three points better off at this point in the season, sitting in the top half of the table in ninth.
We had conceded slightly less goals (17) and also, helpfully, had scored more (16) leaving us with a better goal difference of minus one. The stats can’t help but point a finger at a poorly performing team, particularly when it comes to what West Ham are and aren’t offering defensively.
West Ham signed some outstanding defenders this summer. Maximillian Killman has been an impressive and organised leader for previous club Wolves. Jean-Clair Todibo is a skilled French international who was also wanted by Serie A club Juventus, and Aaron Wan-Bissaka was one of England’s most highly rated youth players.
They are all players with a strong background and who are more than capable of doing a fantastic job at the London Stadium. Yet something hasn’t clicked for the club and it starts at the back line.
When you have this many new players in one side, it’s often hard to tell whether the problem is the player or the system they are played in. In this case, the more familiar faces of Konstantinos Mavropanos and Emerson Palmieri offer a helpful comparison into what’s changed this season – and it starts on both sides of the pitch, potentially setting us up for failure.
One of West Ham’s key defensive problems is how far up the pitch our right back and left back are going, without adequate cover or the ability to recover. Both Wan-Bissaka and Emmerson are influential in driving the ball forwards and high up the pitch, but once it inevitably comes to nothing, there’s two wide open channels for the other team to drive down the sides of the pitch almost unchallenged.
In fairness to Emerson, he is the quicker of the two to recover and return to his spot, but for all Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s incredible skill at defending, he is not able to sprint back into place. All you need to do as an opposing team is watch a few clips of how far up the pitch Wan-Bissaka goes, without any hope of getting back on the break, and you will know exactly how to score against West Ham.
Time after time we are exposed on that side, leaving the centre backs and defensive midfielders scrambling to cover. This either has the effect of too many players panicking and coming to cover the attacking opposition player on the ball, leaving his opposition teammates open and unmarked to receive balls in the box, or gives the attacking player on the ball too much space and time, allowing him to easily get the ball into the box and straight into the back of the net.
It happens in every game – and yet West Ham change nothing about the system. West Ham’s defence has mostly spent a season at sea – and it’s not for a lack of trying or effort on the players’ part.
The defensive and defensive midfield players have pulled off a number of incredible tackles and done the impossible to recover on multiple occasions, especially from Edson Alvarez against Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho in a rare, recent, win. But with this need for heroic tackles as opposed to solid, organised, and – dare we say – boring, defending, also comes the risk of bookings and disciplinary challenges as players are forced to take drastic measures to recover.
More reliance on ‘Redson’ Alvarez and his lack of discipline can’t be what West Ham need to turn things around. He’s hard working and effective, but his fearlessness often punishes the side and he’s been sent off in 20% of our games so far this season.
Similarly, the bookings are piling up for the rest of the defenders and defensive midfielders, with Emerson, Kilman, Soucek, and Rodriguez all having collected three yellow cards so far this season. As a note, Lucas Paqueta leads the pack with four yellows, but you wouldn’t bet your house on that being related to our defensive issues.
For a club that supposedly prioritised strengthening our defensive in the summer transfer window, we are in a really frustrating position of having absolutely done that on paper, but insisting on playing in a system which is bringing the worst out of our players and asking them to do the impossible in every match. In a recent interview with BBC, manager Julian Lopetegui has addressed the disciplinary issues in the team, saying: ‘We have to learn and to change the future. The past you can never change. You have to focus on changing the future.’
The future, for West Ham, is now. It’s never too late to change for the better and get our extremely talented and capable defenders to play in a way that they can excel, and stop the endless flood of goals against the Hammers.
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