West Ham: Shot confidence means Bilic must change formation now
West Ham fell to defeat against Southampton 3-0 at the London Stadium. The confidence in the team is clearly fragile at the minute and changes need to be made urgently.
West Ham United need help. After five defeats from six Premier League games, confidence is low. Real low. The team look unreconizable from the stylish outfit that finished in seventh position last season.
Southampton handed the Hammers their fifth loss of the campaign. A 3-0 defeat that proved the vulnerability of Slaven Bilic’s men. Once the first goal came for the Saints, West Ham were all over the place. It could have been two or three during a ten minute period after the opening goal.
West Ham only bounced back once it was 2-0. Nothing to lose, now. Only way is up. That shows you where the team are mentally. They fall apart after one goal. Usually this season, if a team scores against West Ham, then that one goal becomes three or four. Now that’s worrying.
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Only Chelsea and Bournemouth have not score three or more against West Ham in the Premier League. They were the first two games of the season, too. The confidence crisis came after then, clearly. Probably after the home defeat to Astra Giurgiu in the Europa League.
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Since then, they’ve conceded three to Manchester City and Southampton, and four to Watford and West Brom. The team’s confidence is only spiralling downwards and it’s not finished yet. One goal, and everything falls to pieces.
The goalkeeper, Adrian, and the defense struggle no matter which individuals comes into the team. 16 goals have gone into the Hammers net so far, in six games. Conceding goals at this rate, all you can do is lose confidence.
But now Bilic has to act. You cannot let this continue and drag on. Fielding the same lineup, more or less, week after week and conceding goal after goal cannot go on. The defense needs more protection than this 4-2-3-1 formation is offering.
Playing this way last season, confidence was high and everything clicked. Now, times have changed and Bilic needs to change with them. Playing Manuel Lanzini, Dimitri Payet and Michail Antonio is leaving the rest of the team too exposed.
They’re an exciting trio going forward, but defensively the team are getting the runaround week after week. Mark Noble and Cheikhou Kouyate are not the most defensively sound midfield pairing, either.
Noble lacks pace and mobility to recover when caught high up the field, whilst Kouyate often goes wandering a little too much. They need an extra man in midfield. But who do you drop out of Payet, Lanzini or Antonio?
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Payet is basically undroppable, whilst Antonio has scored five goals from the right wing in six games. Lanzini might have to be sacrificed in the short term while the team rebuilds confidence and gets some momentum going again.
Something has to be done and it has to be something to help the defense. Sure the team up. Things cannot continue like this. The team needs to be changed and Bilic must act now. Before it’s too late.