Quote from: Dave P on August 26, 2022, 09:51:29 AM^^ Quick, hide the insults before he goes back to his proper friends!I was just wondering which of his two faces he said all that out of.
^^ Quick, hide the insults before he goes back to his proper friends!
We cannot play with a 3 in midfield, especially against West Ham. They will bully us in there as they did last season. Our fullbacks will have to play like fullbacks and not wingers and we’ll have to have a central 3 in midfield with 2 proper wide men and 1 up front to have any chance.
3-0 with Cam coming off the bench to score the third with Villa Park rocking in the sunshine.
Greetings Villains. Another Claret & Blue derby is upon us, but this one sees neither team looking in particularly great form. West Ham three straight losses in the league and zero goals. A far cry from the team that was lighting up the league and prompting premature talk of a title challenge a little under a year ago, yet the personel playing now are pretty much identical to the ones we had back then. Indeed Moyes has signed several new players, but insists on "easing them in" and waiting until they're "up to speed" with how West Ham play (which at the moment seems to be not great) much to the consternation of many hammers fans.The primary issue seems to be that West Ham are a victim of their own moderate success. No longers are we a side that teams will look at as three points to be grabbed by attacking and playing the way you want to play. Everyone adapts their game to nullify ours. It's certainly a compliment, and even Man City did it opening day, playing the "inverted full backs" that tucked into midfield and smothered the space, snuffing out counter attacks before they could be started.The trouble is, Moyes changes tact like an oil tanker doing a handbrake turn. Our line up and general play is very predictable. Work the ball side to side across the back, push down the wings and look for an overload to get a cross in, which inevitably will be floated to where the keeper can get some catching practise. Our counter attacking has again been worked out (for about 9 months now) by putting a big centre back on Antonio and not giving him the space to bring the ball down or turn, which inevitably leads to the ball bouncing off of him or him falling on the floor flapping his arms about.The other issue is centre midfield, somewhere that other teams think is a strength. The problem is Rice and Soucek have stopped both sitting and acting as a double pivot. Rice seems to think he is an all action superstar in the Steven G mould, bounding into the box and scoring pearlers. Indeed he's still trying to take penalties too. Soucek has also been bounding forward a lot - which is of course a strength of his - and looks like an auxiliary striker more than a DM. All this leaves holes for other teams to exploit in the middle, like Brighton did with impunity last week. We need a third man in there, linking play and pulling the strings. Lanzini has done this to an extent in the past, but honestly the game has been passing him by match after match for months. Fornals maybe could do it, but Moyes keeps playing him on the wing.I'm maybe being a bit harsh. We had a long and exhausting season last year with a short break and short pre-season (especially for those players on international duty in June for those 4 pointless friendlies - sorry really important Nations League games). Add to that injuries to every centre back we had meant we weren't quite ready at the start of the season, but then in the Premier League there are no gimme games. If you're not 100% you're going to get beat.Anyway, as to Villa. On the outside looking in, aside from that initial lift after Gerrard joined and you won a few on the bounce when Coutinho came in, I can't really see how you've changed as a team much from when Dean Smith was in charge. It looked like you were about to make a wash of signings, change how you played and push on, but that hasn't materialised. Worse, the area you appeared weakest when we last met - central midfield - is still the same. Still, Ings looks like he is staying fit and finding a bit of form, and sometimes all it needs it one in form striker nicking some goals to get the wins that gives the whole team a lift and turns things around.It's hard to predict a result. If Moyes sticks to his usual 4-2-3-1 formation with the same predictable style and players from last season I can see West Ham sinking again. Last night he went with a 3-4-3 vs Viborg now that we've got some defenders back, and I suspect this is how he will want to line up. Get numbers into the middle of the park, smother Villa's play and look to dominate the match, something West Ham do not do enough of of late. I only hope Moyes is brave enough to stick Scamacca in from the start instead of Antonio, as the big lad looks like he knows where the goal is, whereas Antonio only seems to know how to miss sitters.
Sendo has explained his past actions,
We’re losing this by a few goals.
Please donate to help towards the costs of keeping this site going. Thank You.
Author
Topic: Aston Villa vs West Ham Pre-Match Thread (Read 23646 times)
