West Ham have serious issues at set pieces – they’re undoing the good work further forward – The Athletic
The difficulty West Ham United’s team coach endured while leaving their hotel in Liverpool was perhaps a pre-warning that they were better off staying put.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side suffered a 5-2 defeat at Anfield courtesy of goals from Hugo Ekitike, Virgil van Dijk, Alexis Mac Allister, Cody Gapko and an own goal from loanee Axel Disasi, who joined from Chelsea on deadline day. It was West Ham’s 15th league defeat this season, which leaves them in the relegation zone, two points adrift of Nottingham Forest in 17th, and with a minus-20 goal difference.
Before setting off for Anfield, where they have not won since August 2015, a mechanical issue with the team coach caused a delay to their arrival for the 3pm kick-off.
“There was a delay leaving the hotel,” said Nuno in his post-match press conference. “The hydraulics system didn’t come up. Everybody got out of the bus, released some weight and we go again.”
Nuno, who named an unchanged starting XI from the goalless draw against Bournemouth, found humour in the situation. But the nature of West Ham’s defending was no laughing matter. Three of the five goals conceded were from set pieces. West Ham rank joint-highest in the league with Bournemouth (16), for goals conceded this way. It was the first time they had conceded five goals in a league match since the home defeat to Chelsea on August 22.
“It’s frustrating as a coaching staff,” said Nuno. “It’s something that we’ve been really putting a lot of effort, time and trying to make it right. Recently, there was a lot of improvement. But today, the first three goals all came from corner situations. There’s no other way to look at it than admit that we made mistakes and try and improve for the next one.”
Under former head coach Graham Potter, West Ham conceded seven goals from corners in defeats to Sunderland, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace. West Ham conceded from a set piece in Nuno’s first game in the 1-1 away draw against Everton. Similar to Potter, Nuno was unable to find solutions with their weakness exploited against Leeds United (in October), Liverpool (in November), Brighton & Hove Albion (in December) and the 2-1 home defeat to Forest on January 6. The addition of first-team coach Paco Jemez in mid-January had improved West Ham’s awareness on set pieces, but they slipped back into bad habits against Liverpool.
Their tactic was to get versatile defender Joe Gomez to throw off goalkeeper Mads Hermansen. For Liverpool’s second goal, Gomez was positioned in front of Hermansen. Midfielder Soungoutou Magassa deputised for the suspended Freddie Potts, who served the second game of his three-match suspension, and was assigned to mark Van Dijk.
But the defender shrugged off Magassa before scoring a towering header. It was a soft goal to concede, given what the players had worked on during the week at their training hub in Rush Green.
“These are the details you need to be on top of,” Mateus Fernandes told West Ham’s website. “When you play these big teams, you need to be ready for this difference. We worked on stopping Van Dijk during the week, because we know how good he is in those situations, but we weren’t able to stop them scoring.”
Goals from Ekitike and Mac Allister were also from set pieces. On the cusp of half-time, with the scoreline 3-0 to the hosts, Liverpool fans chanted, “Going down, going down, going down.”
But despite West Ham’s defensive woes, their attacking play did not resemble a side with a precarious league position. In the 12th minute, centre-back Konstantinos Mavropanos fired a good chance over the bar. Past the half-hour mark, Soucek failed to convert club captain Jarrod Bowen’s pass from close range. Winger Crysencio Summerville opted against shooting near the edge of the box following a superb solo run.
In the 80th minute, with the scoreline 4-2, Summerville uncharacteristically fired over the bar, following good link-up play with striker Taty Castellanos. The January signing from Lazio had a quiet afternoon but scored his second league goal of the season from a Bowen corner. West Ham were deserving of more than two goals, and the away enclosure chorusing, “Forever blowing bubbles” in added time reflected that.
“It’s hard to explain, and maybe it’s absurd to say that it’s a good performance when you lose 5-2, but there were a lot of positives and negatives in our game,” added Nuno. “You go half-time and you have your players in front of you and you say, ‘Boys, you are playing good, but we are losing 3-0′. We created a lot of situations and combined well but we made mistakes in our set pieces.
“I think we started the second half well. We scored early and we created problems for Liverpool. Being in front of you guys and saying that it’s a good performance may sound really silly from myself, but this is what I saw. I saw a team that didn’t give up, they believed that they had a chance in the game, but we go home with a poor result.”
After losing 5-1 to Chelsea earlier in the season, West Ham responded with an improved performance in the 3-0 away win against Forest, then managed by Nuno. They are on their travels once more with an important fixture at London rivals Fulham this Wednesday.
Mavropanos, Disasi and Hermansen had a lengthy discussion after the loss to Liverpool. They have been key performers in West Ham’s recent upturn in performances and will hope last Saturday was just a bump in the road.
Post-match, the players left the field to Three Little Birds by Bob Marley & The Wailers playing over the speakers. The chorus stood out, “Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be alright”.
Nuno will certainly hope that applies to their ability to defend set pieces.
