What's Gone Wrong At West Ham
West Ham did not spend over £160million ($193.3m) to perform this poorly. How would an objective outside observer fix West Ham?
Reverse engineering is the process of opening up or dissecting a process or system to see how it works, in order to duplicate or enhance it. Using this process, we can try to analyze why and what has gone wrong at relegation threatened West Ham and more importantly how we would fix it.
Offense
West Ham spent £160million this Summer to sign players including Lucas Paquetá, (€42.95m) & Gianluca Scamacca (€36.00m) to bolster an offense that already had high quality inverted wingers in Jarrod Bowen and Saïd Benrahma as well a run-in-behind bully ball #9 in Michail Antonio. On paper, West Ham’s offensive style is built to play in the same mold as league leaders Arsenal. West Ham has the personnel to play fluid and dynamic attacking football and in this department I would not bring anyone else in.
Midfield
I mentioned Paquetá as an offensive player but really he starts in midfield with Declan Rice and Tomáš Souček. Right now, Rice and Souček are playing together in a 2-man pivot with Paquetá as the #10; we need to change this.
The 2-man pivot is trending towards more offense and less defense. City started this shift when their wingers (Bernardo Silva & Phil Foden) started playing in center-midfield. Later, Arteta took Xhaka who is an above average #8 and poor #6 and has turned him into a full-on attacking #8 to extenuate his frustrating ball-giveaways; now he losses possession higher up the pitch and Arsenal press higher so Arteta turned a weakness into a quasi-strength.
Defense
Cresswell and Coufal are OK fullbacks. I like that Cresswell can cross extremely well and Coufal’s good defensively but I would move Thilo Kehrer back to Right-Back to emulate the setups at Arsenal (Ben White), France (Jules Koundé) and Brazil (Éder Militão). West Ham needs clean sheets and moving Kehrer to RB gives them the option to shift their formation into a back 5 when they’re defending deep out of possession.
That leaves us at center-back with the nearly always injured Zouma, 34 year old Ogbonna, Craig Dawson (the only reliable one, really), and recent summer acquisition Nayef Aguerd. Of all the departments that need reinforcements this January, center-back is classed as my #1 spot for West Ham.
Solutions - Defense & Style of Play
Lets dissect the defense further. At Center-Back West Ham have 2 options to improve, option 1 is they can go after Harry Maguire himself. Maguire would walk into this West Ham starting XI on day 1 and immediately improve their defending from deep. Maguire is also sound in possession and a threat in the air. This would be my preferred option if I’m running West Ham as it would open up the path to become a counter-attacking, smash and grab team that would most definitely avoid relegation and steal big wins from the top 6 teams.
Option 2 would be to go after a center-back with pace. I’m not sure if he’s even available on the market but I would imagine by his lack game time he is, I would suggest Davinson Sánchez. Unlike Maguire, Sánchez is not the one to Marshall your back-four, however, what the Columbian does offer is an abundance of pace, in our case, recovery pace.
If West Ham’s new manager, I feel a new manager is inevitable at this point, thinks his team should not sit deep and hit you on the counter but instead believes this is a team capable of playing on the front foot, having a CB like Sánchez, who although mistake prone, can hang up in the opposition’s half of the field to press high and still be capable of catching up on a sprint to nearly any forward in the league should the opposition playing a long ball over the top. Sánchez is the most viable solution for a tactical change.
Solutions - Midfield
Once Center-Back is solved the next move is in midfield. I lean towards Option 1 of signing Harry Maguire and moving to towards becoming a counter-attacking team. If West Ham are going to sit deep out of possession that means in the rare occurrences where the ball is won back, the midfielders on it need to be smart, technical, and ball-carriers.
I would start a midfielder 3 with Declan Rice at the base and Paquetá & Fornals on either side. Paquetá played a deeper midfield position for Brazil and Fornals who’s not good enough to start as the lone #10 or as a winger, would act as an outlet to receive the ball in the midfield and not easily lose it under pressure.
Solutions - Offense
Offensively is where the least amount of changes need to be made. On paper, Bowen and Benrahma are built perfectly for Premier League style counter attacking with pace, beating defenders 1v1 to create chances for their teammates, and of course scoring goals. I would opt for Michail Antonio as my 9, versus Scamacca purely due to the former’s immense hold-up play. If my West Ham team is going to be a counter-attacking juggernaut defending with 5 at the back at times, we’re going to need a strongman up top who can hold the ball up and give his wingers and midfielders an opportunity to move up the pitch.
Solutions - Manager
I would go after Mauricio Pochettino (he probably thinks he’s too big for the job but he is not), Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Bruno Lage and Ralph Hasenhüttl. I feel all of these managers are totally capable of taking this relegation likely West Ham team and making them much more defensively compact, and playing offense, albeit a basic style of offense, with a plan and effective strategy.
With these changes I would predict a top 12 finish for West Ham. Without any changes, I would be very worried about relegation.