Many questions have been asked of Manuel Pellegrini of late and rightly so, the hammers recorded their fourth straight league defeat on Saturday after an injury-time strike from previous West Ham target, Adama Traore which guided Wolves to all three points.
The Premier League table shows the irons rooted to the bottom of the league, pointless heading into the international break. But, what is to blame for the horrible start to the season?
New, New, New.
New signings, a new manager and a new back room staff injecting fresh ideas. All features that could affect a team heading into a brand new season. Although unfamiliarity can be an issue, Pellegrini’s men have now had a whole pre-season and five games under their belt to gain some identity which is currently nonexistent. Manuel may be new to a losing start but hammers fans will begin to feel a sense of déjà vu and as much as I do believe all the change is a factor, I don’t believe it is the main reason to West Ham’s so far, pointless campaign.
Consistency is the key and the side are yet to show any signs of that either. The manager seems to be unsure on his best starting eleven which is telling as he is yet to stick with an unchanged side, I think with all the change in the summer some consistency needs to be shown and that can simply come from picking your match day squad.
Excluding injuries, Pellegrini should look to stabilise the club quickly by picking the same starting eleven for back to back games. You could argue the case that not one of the teams thus far has warranted the right to start the week after, but undoubtedly, a level of consistency is needed at West Ham and this will bring some old to all the new.
A winning mentality needs to be installed.
Manuel Pellegrini will need to rally the troops in order to take any points in our upcoming fixtures and he should start by inputting a winning mentality into the players. I feel this is something seriously lacking at the club and possibly the main reason as to why we always end up looking at who is below us in the league, rather than who is above us.
It does however look inevitable that the hammers will be conceding a lot of goals this season, especially if the Chileans preferred style of attacking football rubs off anytime soon.
So, if we are to go a goal behind the squad should still believe we can go on to win the game, as we’ve witnessed far too many times a West Ham side that simply crumbles after conceding. This will not only need to happen for us to push up the table, but for us to push on as a club.
Alice Dearlove