- West Ham drew 0-0 with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Monday night
- The point takes the Hammers to two points above the relegation zone
- Nuno Espirito Santo chose to swap a striker for a midfielder late in the game
West Ham United drew 0-0 with Crystal Palace on Monday night. The point takes the Hammers to two points above the relegation zone in another step forward for the club in their Premier League survival fight.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s team may feel as they could have won the game, having the better chances of the two teams. Regardless, West Ham put on another strong defensive display, securing their first back-to-back clean sheets of the season.
Late in the game, with Crystal Palace having the best spell of the game, Nuno chose to take off Valentin Castellanos for Mohamadou Kante. The move could be seen as negative, but ultimately secured the point for the Hammers.
Jamie Carragher defends Nuno’s tactics
Speaking on Sky Sports after the game, Jamie Carragher defended Nuno’s choice to replace a striker with a midfielder late in the match. The former Liverpool defender say’s securing the point was the most important thing for West Ham and that losing was not and option.
“It felt like one of those games, and sometimes supporters might be sat at home – you’re a West Ham supporter and you’re thinking you know ‘go for it’,” Carragher said.
“But sometimes your team aren’t playing well enough and you actually (think to yourself) ‘What’s the strength of our team tonight?’
“When you listen to his interview he said they just couldn’t quite get the connections going forward, you know the interplay between the front four.
“And I think sometimes as a manager, if they were playing well you think ‘No we’ve got to go for it, we’ve got to take the chance because we fancy ourselves to go and get the goal’.
“Once they weren’t having those connections and the back four were playing well and the two centre-backs, you’ve just got to go ‘You know what, hopefully we can nick it (but) make sure we don’t concede a goal’.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to make that judgement as a manager and I think that was the case the longer the game went on.”
