Robert Snodgrass has come out and admitted that West Ham United’s defending continues to be the team’s downfall, so Manuel Pellegrini must fix the problem before it defines their season.
While the Hammers’ exciting attack was scoring plenty of goals throughout pre-season, Pellegrini’s side were shipping too many and that boiled over in the weekend’s 5-0 opening day thumping from Manchester City.
Speaking to whufc.com, Snodgrass didn’t sugarcoat the fact that West Ham are conceding too many goals but he’s now looking on after going back to the drawing board:
The thing is we were conceding goals in pre-season as well. The manager’s touched on it saying after the game we cannot keep conceding goals, and it’s a hard one to sit here and give an interview after 5-0, but to the best that I can. If anything, it’s probably sometimes the best thing that can happen because you need to go back to the drawing board and realise what this Premier League’s all about.
Read West Ham verdict
The Hammers conceded 12 goals in their six pre-season games, including four against Man City and three against Hertha Berlin, but the defence looked as open as ever on Saturday.
What lessons can be learned? Well, it seems like Pellegrini selecting Michail Antonio was an attempt to provide Aaron Cresswell with plenty of support but that just didn’t work out. Does a change of system need to be tested?
Some would argue that it’s a personnel issue, but as the season goes on you would hope the defence grows stronger together, especially when they’re not facing the best attack in the league.
It’d be a real shame for a leaky backline to diminish what promises to be a good season for West Ham though, so hopefully, it’s a resolved situation sooner rather than later.
