1. We are finding our shooting boots.
In recent years, West Ham have always struggled to score. However this may be the turn in the tide as West Ham cannot stop scoring. We have scored 20 goals already so far this season and only Manchester City have more. So how is this happening? Slaven Bilic is playing a much more attack-minded side than I ever remember West Ham having. We attack with real venom and we know when the right time is to take a shot. Payet, Lanzini, Moses and Sakho all look like big threats and I think that a lot of teams will worry about facing these attackers. However it isn’t just our attackers. Our full backs are really helping us progress as a team. They bomb forwards, deliver and get into scoring positions. We can see this as Jenkinson has now scored 2 goals in the last 2 games.
2. We play on the floor.
As you may recall Crystal Palace received an early red card with Dwight Gayle being sent off for two bookable offences. From then on Palace sat extremely deep allowing West Ham space in midfield but packing the box with 9 or even 10 men at times. The old West Ham would’ve tried to play very direct in the air up to the striker but not this new team. We patiently played for 40 odd minutes with the ball on the floor simply passing it around patiently and waiting for the opportunity to pounce. We did not force it and late on in the 88th minute Manuel Lanzini smashed the ball home to get the lead. After this we had four minutes of added time and here we showed we can also counter attack teams effectively. We defended well and then the ball broke for us; we countered quickly giving Palace no time to retreat, played it through to Payet and he put the game to bed within the blink of an eye.
3. We are unstoppable on the road.
We have now won 4 games on the road and drawn 1. You might say oh maybe the teams we have played have been easy. This isn’t the case. We have beaten Palace, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool and drawn arguably the easiest game to Sunderland. So why are we doing so well away from home? I think it’s a confidence thing. It’s the first season at West Ham for a lot of the players and our last campaign at Upton Park. Is the expectation of winning games at home dragging the players down? When we are at home we don’t seem to attack however away from home the players don’t seem to have a care in the world, as we see attack after attack and confidence running right through them.
4. We have great squad depth.
You wouldn’t realise with the results that we have produced that we have a few key players missing. Valencia and Carroll have recently returned and Alex Song is nearly there but what about our defence? Our two main centre-backs are out injured and somehow our defence is looking as good as ever. .James Collins. What an absolute hero. He’s been around for ages and he knows every trick in the book; every skill, every flick, he may be slow but you don’t realise as he doesn’t allow the fast athletic attackers to run into the space. He gets his challenge in early and doesn’t give them any room. He also reads the game fantastically. He doesn’t let any ball bounce over his head and he talks to the players and guides them to do the right thing. There were rumours of him maybe thinking about leaving in January. We can’t lose Ginge, he’s still a great player and a great asset to the team.
