West Ham Season Preview 18/19 Part 1
It seems like the game against Burnley last season might have been a turning point after all.
The home match in early March marked the nadir of a thoroughly terrible season for West Ham and not just because of the team’s abject performance in a 3–0 defeat. This was the game where the tensions that had been simmering under the surface for the last two years finally boiled over. A series of individual fans interrupted the game by storming onto the pitch — one got chucked on his arse by Mark Noble, another grabbed the corner flag on his way and planted it in the centre circle — while supporters gathered en masse below the director’s box to express their frustrations with the way the board had been running the club.
Those frustrations stemmed mainly from a series of broken promises. Many fans had begrudgingly tolerated the decision made by Gold, Sullivan, & Brady to relocate the club from their home of 112 years to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford on the basis that the increased capacity and revenue garnered from the new ground would allow the club to progress and be more competitive at the top end of the Premier League.
Instead, West Ham fans had seen a total net investment in the squad of around £25mil in transfer fees across the two seasons in Stratford while the club repeatedly failed to secure their first choice targets. Although complaining about that level of investment may make fans seems entitled, it has been slightly galling see the club rake in a pre-tax profit of £43mil in their first season following the move and then see Gold & Sullivan fail to deliver on their assurances; fans didn’t accept the club selling a portion of their identity to watch dour football under David Moyes.
This wasn’t just an issue of spending though, as supporters’ disgruntlement extended to the way the logistics of the stadium move itself have been handled, to the lack of proper recruitment infrastructure at the club, to the inadequate training facilities and medical staff, to the near constant PR embarrassments the club have been embroiled in.
The outcry of the Burnley game showed that something had to change and the signs are that, just maybe, things have.
Moyes fulfilled his duties and marginally avoided relegation but Gold & Sullivan rightly realised that his appointment on a more permanent basis would not satisfy the ambitions of the fan base. They turned to former City manager Manuel Pellegrini who has helped to reshape the squad and club during his brief tenure so far.
He’s been busy, bringing in 9 first team players, but perhaps his most significant addition has been Mario Husillos as Director of Football, a role that had previously been carried out by David Sullivan despite his complete lack of qualification for the job. If nothing else, this restructuring of the club’s transfer policy and recruitment team signals a potential new dawn for West Ham and is a step in the right direction, even if the results don’t immediately follow.
One thing that the outlay in this transfer window has made abundantly clear is that the board have been withholding funds from the last two managers. The club’s bizarre insistence on signing “Premier League proven” players last summer, their refusal to authorise the signing of William Carvalho, and the lack of investment in January suddenly snap into focus — Bilic’s contract would have expired at the end of the 17/18 season, so the board were hoping that they’d get through that season with their Premier League status in tact so they could avoid sacking a manager they evidently had no long term faith in. After an amicable departure, they then could conduct a rebuild of the squad with their preferred candidate in place.
When things turned sour quickly under Bilic at the start of last season, the club’s hand was forced and they felt they had to sack him. They couldn’t secure the manager they wanted mid-season, so they found a stopgap solution in Moyes but decided to minimise the transfer budget available to him in January in the hopes that he would be able to achieve safety with the existing squad, thereby preserving funds for the following summer under a new manager.
Pellegrini is the manager they’ve entrusted with that money and he has used it to overhaul the first team squad with the guidance of Husillos.
Here’s an evaluation of each of those signings individually and some thoughts on what it might all add up to.
Signings:
Lukas Fabianski, £7m from Swansea
In isolation, this seems like a good deal at a reasonable price — Fabianski is a quality goalkeeper who most likely has a few more seasons of high level football left in the tank. Swansea had a respectable defensive record last season, despite relegation, and a lot of that was down to having Fabianski as the last line of defence.
In context though, this makes less sense. Fabianski is evidently good but he’s not significantly better than Adrián and he is two years older than the Spaniard. We’re now in a situation where we’ve spent £7mil on one goalkeeper who is a minor upgrade and will be a starter for maybe two seasons. After that we’re going to have to go out and buy two GKs, which will cost us substantially more on top of the £7mil we’ve already paid. Surely it would have been more sensible to buy a younger option who can last for 5 or 6 seasons, even if he was to play understudy to Adrián for this year? Adi’s contract runs out at the end of the 18/19 season, so there would have been a natural breaking point for a changing of the guard.
This might have been influenced by the need to spend more extravagantly elsewhere in the squad and although it may not be the most wise acquisition, the fact remains that Fabianski is a very good goalkeeper who will be a solid player for West Ham. His distribution has looked shaky in his few performances so far though, which might undermine his utility in a system that emphasises passing out from the back.
Ryan Fredericks, free transfer from Fulham
With Fredericks, you’re essentially getting a Tesco Value Kyle Walker which is by no means a bad thing.
What he brings to the table is an abundance of pace — something West Ham have sorely been lacking for a long time — and with that, an ability to drag the team up the pitch with his driving runs, to stretch opposition defences in behind with his movement off the ball, and to force opposition wingers to track back to deal with him. He was an integral part of a Fulham side that played attack-minded, possession-oriented football, which should translate well to Pellegrini’s preferred style of play.
On the more negative side, there are some question marks about his ability to negotiate a step up in standard, given that his lack of discipline and his defensive shortcomings were often exposed at Championship level. It’s also unclear whether his recovery pace will be good enough at Premier League level to compensate for that. He’s a somewhat rash player, both in terms of his tackling and his decision-making, which is a slight cause for concern.
Right-back has long been a problem position for West Ham and Fredericks won’t exactly have his work cut out to be an improvement over previous incumbents of that position in recent memory such as Carl Jenkinson, Guy Demel, and Joey O’Brien.
West Ham have signed a 25-year old first team ready player who adds a different dimension to their attack, which is pretty good going for a free transfer. His wages are unlikely to be extortionate as well, which is important considering that the attacking signings we’ve made are all going to be on a premium.
Issa Diop, £22m from Toulouse
Diop’s not a player I was hugely familiar with before he signed, but based on what I’ve read and seen so far, he’s potentially the most exciting of the signings we’ve made.
He’s 6"4 but mobile and co-ordinated. Solid and composed in possession but doesn’t have a spectacular range of passing. He’s an assertive, proactive defender who likes to play on the front foot, which is good for winning the ball back, but means he sometimes gets drawn out of position; he’s essentially a more high-spec version of Winston Reid. The fact that he was captain of his club at such a young age speaks well of his temperament and maturity, too.
Having someone like Diop who plays on the right-hand side of a CB pairing will be useful if he’s playing with Fredericks at RB, as his mobility and ability to defend one-on-one out wide should prove effective on the cover. He’s a player who should thrive in a high defensive line.
He also scored 3 goals for a poor Toulouse side last year and with the right sort of set piece delivery, there’s scope for him to improve on that this season, not to mention what he adds to the side from defensive set pieces. It’s enouraging to see West Ham spend some money on someone who has the potential to be on the way up, rather than buying players on the decline.
At the minute, Balbuena appears to be ahead of him in the pecking order but hopefully that’ll change and we’ll see Diop integrate into the first team more regularly as the season progresses.
Fabian Balbuena, £3.5m from Corinthians
Balbuena’s a player who is an unknown to the vast majority of Premier League fans, so it’s instructive to turn to the views of South American football journo Tim Vickery for his evaluation on West Ham’s new man:
“ He’s (Balbuena) a no-nonsense, big, physical defender but I’ve come to the decision over the years that centre back is the hardest position to adjust to coming straight from South American football to the Premier League…
Balbuena has been with Corinthians who are a very, very organised team… I’m a little bit worried for him taken out of that context, I’m a little bit worried that he might be a bit too ponderous in the Premier League.
He’s not the quickest… he may just get found out a bit.”
This is obviously a bit of a red flag as it doesn’t seem as though he’ll mesh with the system Pellegrini is likely to implement at West Ham and there have been plenty of recent examples that demonstrate how closely a central defenders performance is tied to the tactical set up they operate in: compare Michael Keane’s performances for Burnley and Everton; Otamendi’s performances for City and Argentina; Dejan Lovren’s performances for Southampton and Liverpool.
Balbuena is being brought in to probably be fourth choice at CB in the long term though and the reported £3.5m is roughly what Leeds paid for Pontus Jansson and Birmingham City paid for Marc Roberts.
Best case scenario is that we’ve picked up a viable squad player for peanuts. If he’s not quite good enough for us, but anything better than completely fucking useless at Premier League level, we can shift him on for three or four times what we paid for him. Plus, he’s a native Spanish speaker so you’d fancy his chances of settling given the big group of Spanish speakers we have in the squad.
He’s looked limited on the ball so far in the friendlies though, which is a concern.
Jack Wilshere, free transfer from Arsenal
Put the injuries to one side — has anyone hyping up Wilshere as an exciting signing for West Ham actually watched him play over the last two years?
Before he fractured his leg against Tottenham, he was in and out of the Bournemouth side because he couldn’t string together a good run of form. Even when he did have a good game, he offered zero defensive contribution and generally didn’t provide enough going forward to make up for that.
He started last season at Arsenal playing with the reserves in the Europa League and only got back into the first team when Ramsey got injured over Christmas. Wilshere started those games in December/January but went back to being a rotation option when Ramsey was fit again. When he did play, he was part of the reason that Arsenal were so dysfunctional — he’s sluggish getting around the pitch, he struggles to drive past players on the dribble because he’s lost his change of pace, and he slows everything down in possession to the point that attacks grind to a halt.
He’s not been the dynamic, creative passer that he’s made out to be since about 2013.
It’s something that’s reflected in Wilshere’s numbers compared to our other creative players. If we adjust to per 90 mins to make up for the fact that Lanzini started twice as many games as Wilshere last year, they’re not that close:
That 0.1 difference in assists per 90 doesn’t look like much but is the equivalent of roughly 4 assists per season. Lanzini played passes that lead to shots far more often than Wilshere did last season and while the quality of the chances that Wilshere created was marginally higher, that’s balanced out by the fact that Lanzini provides much more of a direct goal threat.
Lanzini pretty much only had Arnautović to work with last season in terms of off the ball movement, while Wilshere had a range of quick, talented attackers making runs for him and for him to exchange passes with in the final third.
Wilshere also had far, far more opportunities on the ball last year (Arsenal averaged ~58% possession, West Ham averaged ~47%), so he should have been blowing Lanzini out of the water in terms of chance creation.
When you take that into account, his numbers look mediocre and are actually closer to Mark Noble’s than any of our other players.
He’s looked miles off the pace in pre-season as well. There have been occasional bright notes of technical ability but they’ve largely been overshadowed by a general lethargy to his performances. He keeps getting dispossessed cheaply, has looked quite lightweight, and he gets around the pitch like he’s towing a piano behind him. He’s not even compensated for that with his off the ball movement — he’s rarely shown a willingness to find space to pick the ball off his defenders.
The warning signs are there.
Andriy Yarmolenko, £17.5m from Borussia Dortmund
Based on what Dortmund fans have said, it’s probably fair to be a bit sceptical about Yarmolenko given that his only season outside of Ukraine didn’t go that well. I think the move makes sense if we think about it as an upgrade for Andre Ayew though — they’re both one-paced, technical left-footed wingers who play from the right.
Another way of thinking about it is to look at what kind of similar players have been available for similar sorts of fees recently. In the last few windows, Southampton have signed Mohamed Elyounoussi (£16m), Ajax have signed Dušan Tadić (£15m), Dortmund have signed Maximilian Philipp (£17.5m) and Everton have signed Theo Walcott (£20m) for roughly the same amount. While all of these are good players in their own right, none are really world beaters, and Yarmolenko is certainly capable of matching that level of productivity, so perhaps he represents decent value at his price point.
Either way, signing someone left-footed to give a bit of balance to our attack is a positive. Outside of the two LBs and Ogbonna, the only lefties we had in the squad before this summer were Carroll, Ayew, and Snodgrass. None of them had any real impact on the first team last season and that meant our midfield and forwards were all right-footed which made us a bit predictable.
I’m not wildly keen on this signing and think that he could well end up being a Ukrainian Matt Jarvis for us. I think we could have spent that money more wisely and I have my concerns about our right flank defensively if we play Yarmolenko ahead of Fredericks. Yarmolenko also appears to have a tendency to play with his head down which gives him a bit of tunnel vision when he’s running with the ball. He could end up being an extremely frustrating player to watch.
With that said, we’ve not spent a fortune on him and if he contributes 5+ goals, 5+ assists and offers some creativity to help unpick stubborn defences, he’s probably got to be considered a success.
Felipe Anderson, £33.5m (rising to £40m+) from Lazio
Obviously there are some question marks against Anderson as he’s never replicated his really good second season at Lazio, but it’s difficult to not get excited by this signing. If nothing else, it’s nice to finally have someone else in the side who doesn’t look like he’s playing in concrete boots when he sprints.
We’ve probably overpaid a bit, but we got the £20mil we originally spent on Ayew back from Swansea in January and only spent on Hugill + Mário’s loan fee in Jan so that’s a decent chunk to towards this deal. Anderson won’t have to do much to contribute more than any of those players did combined. I’m not too fussed about him being a bit hit and miss — there are enough creative players in the squad now to pick up the slack if he’s having an off day. It’s not like the situation we had with Payet, where our entire attack collapsed when he wasn’t at it/after he left because we were so reliant on one player. If Anderson can be a game changer on even a semi-regular basis then he’s done his job.
Lucas Pérez, £4m from Arsenal
He’s a player I flagged up in a previous piece for having good underlying stats while he was at Deportivo La Coruna last season. Here’s what I said:
Pérez finished the season with the 3rd best xA in the league (9.9, compared to 6 actual assists) and he provided 79 key passes, second only to Messi. Arsenal look a little short of genuine wide options at the minute and they could do a lot worse than giving Pérez another chance.
Needless to say, I’m quite happy we’ve brought him in — he’s a solid wide creator and he’s versatile enough to cover both wings and to function as third choice striker. At £4m, he also represents good value, even if he’s allegedly on more money than Andy Carroll is per week.
If, for the sake of argument, he’s on £120k p/w, that works out at a £6.24m per year and if you amortise the transfer across his 3-year contract, the annual expenditure on Pérez works out at around £7.5m, which is very reasonable. Giving him a 3-year contract rather than anything longer is a surprisingly shrewd move from West Ham and the RW position isn’t locked down, so there’s an opportunity for him to make a serious contribution to the side this year.
It also bears mentioning at this juncture that Felipe Anderson is the only one of the current attacking options that is 25 or under — Yarmolenko, Carroll, Hernández, Antonio, Snodgrass, Arnautović, and Pérez are all 28–31.We’re going to have another enormous rebuilding job a few years down the line.
Carlos Sánchez, undisclosed from Fiorentina
The Sánchez signing seems to have been received quite poorly by sections of our fan base, largely on the back of his underwhelming spell at Villa and what has been perceived as a poor World Cup for Colombia.
I can understand that to a certain degree. Central midfield should have been a priority and it’s a bit strange that we left it until the last minute to sort out. Hopefully the fact that he’s signed on a short term deal (2-year contract) means that we’ve got someone else lined up further down the road and we’re just sticking a plaster on that position for the short term. It gives the club a chance to give Declan Rice a go in that role with a safety net in the form of a senior player if that doesn’t work out. If that’s the case, the club’s not tied down to long contract if they decide they want to upgrade Sánchez next summer.
I’m not nearly as negative on Sánchez and think he’ll prove to be an astute acquisition who can shore things up when needed, even if I would have preferred us to spend heavily here to strengthen our weakest position.
As an aside, I think this signing in particular (along with the Pérez and Fabianski deals) signifies the club’s intention for this squad to competitive for the duration of Pellegrini’s 3-year contract, with very little consideration towards building anything for the long term. He has almost exclusively signed players who are ready made and able to slot into the first team straight away, which reads as an attempt from the club to essentially bootstrap their way into the top half immediately. That’s not necessarily a criticism — football management is a short term game at the best of times — but Pellegrini is in his mid-60s and this is likely to be his last contract, so it makes sense for him to assemble a squad that will be competitive for his last hurrah.
This is not a side that has been assembled with any sort of development in mind though, so there will be concerns if they do not hit the ground running.
