Football club West Ham is experiencing a tragic start to the new season of the English Premier League. Three defeats and a goal score of 0:5 dropped the Hammers to the bottom of the table. The overwhelming criticism is aimed at the entire team, including the two Czech representatives.
Two seasons of euphoria under David Moyes could very easily turn into a bare-knuckle fight for survival. Of course, it is too early to judge, but the anxiety in the Hammers camp is logically growing after three opening rounds, from which the ambitious team did not get a goal or a point.
After Manchester City and the newcomer from Nottingham, the Hammers were beaten by the excellent Brighton.
The southern English team, which has been courageously led by coach Graham Potter for more than three years, was not troubled by the departures of the mainstays, central midfielder Yves Bissouma to Tottenham and left-back Marco Cucurella to Chelsea.
The Seagulls are unbeaten after three rounds and have brought valuable wins from both Old Trafford and the London Stadium.
While Brighton’s players flew confidently around the pitch like seagulls over the south coast of England on Sunday, the home side’s performance did not in the least resemble West Ham from the previous two seasons, which ended in the same promotion to European football.
Jermaine Defoe, the famous striker who started his rich career with a total of 162 Premier League goals in the Clarets and Blues at the end of the last century, aptly used the word “lethargy”.
“It was a really negative, lethargic performance. No energy. I’m very disappointed with West Ham,” he shook his head on the BBC broadcast.
Another former Gunner, the even more famous Alan Shearer, is unpleasantly surprised by the performances of the East London club. “I don’t understand it. Even though they played the European Cups on Thursday, there shouldn’t be any fatigue at all at this stage of the season,” he said.
Defoe then poked some of the Hammers’ poor moments and it almost looked like he was sitting on Vladimir Coufal.
“Look, Brighton are in great form, West Ham are holding the ball and I think Coufal is playing too slowly. And here again, it’s two on one, Coufal has to react quicker,” Defoe described two situations where instead of attacking into a more open defense followed by a pass back to goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianský.
“It’s awfully slow, especially when they’re playing at home,” added the man, who has donned the colors of Tottenham or Sunderland in addition to the Hammers.
Czech footballers, Coufal and Tomáš Souček, were the only West Ham players who played the entire match on Thursday and started again in the starting line-up on Sunday. But the fans and the English media were not pleased with their performance.
The Hammers News magazine took a hard look at Souček in particular.
While the indispensable midfielder was the biggest attacking threat, just like the previous weekend at The City Ground, Nottingham Forest’s stadium, he failed to convert his promising chances again. In addition, he spoiled passes quite often.
According to WhoScored.com, he had a success rate of just 64.1 percent. Only substitute Italian striker Gianluca Scamacca passed worse in the match.
Values of other central players for comparison: Declan Rice – 84.6 percent, Brighton midfielders Alexis MacAllister – 88.2 percent, Felipe Caicedo even 91.1 percent. Coufal also significantly exceeded Součka in this statistic – 81 percent.
Hammers News therefore embarked on a tough trial. “Terrible performance by Souček, the passing statistics are truly shocking,” wrote the website and began to advise Moyes to look for a replacement for the captain of the Czech national team.
“Moyes sees something in Souček that we currently do not see,” added the website, which once again repeated all the previous merits of the midfielder with the number 28 on the jersey.
“He has deservedly become a fan favorite, but despite all that, he has been completely ineffective in the last six months to a year. He seems to have lost his goalscoring instinct and his passing is not up to the level the Premier League requires,” Hammers News said. .
According to the website, Souček also slows down West Ham’s play in the transition phase. “We can’t afford to have a transition like this,” he said, urging Moyes to change.
But the Scottish manager has long insisted on his conservative approach to the starting line-up. West Ham is therefore increasingly easy to read for opponents.
So far, Moyes has been speaking in general terms. “I’ve been saying for some time that we’re not completely ready. We don’t have everything firmly in place and we have to make changes. We know that and we’re getting ready for it,” stated the fifty-nine-year-old coach.
In the coming weeks, a greater involvement of reinforcements is already expected, especially the skillful winger Maxwell Cornet. The German stopper Thilo Kehrer started without much effort and quite unluckily, he gave away a penalty against Brighton.
The massive strengthening does not seem to end, ex-Chelsea player, Italian left-back Emerson should come. Creative Belgian international midfielder Hans Vanaken has already informed his breadwinners, Club Brugge, that he would like to try a foreign engagement. West Ham are at the top of the list of interested parties.
