West Ham Squad Depth

This is a quick and frustrated overview of the state of West Ham’s squad at the close of the January transfer window. The following assumes we persist with Moyes’s 5–3–2/5–4–1 system because we’ve looked fucking hopeless any time we’ve deviated from it:

• We currently have 4 senior CBs to cover 3 CB positions. Two of those have just returned from injury (Reid, Fonte), 2 of them are 34 (Fonte, Collins), and all of them have generally awful injury records. Relying on these players is a gamble. Those 4 are supplemented by Declan Rice, who only has around 20 first team appearances to his name so far. Cresswell, Zabaleta, and Kouyaté can all provide cover at the back, but our squad is so thin in their favoured positions that it would significantly weaken our team if they are forced to fill in at centre-back.
• Despite being so understaffed in a crucial position, West Ham allowed Reeces Oxford and Burke to leave on loan. Alongside strengthening the centre of defence, those two can also play in central midfield and at right-back, respectively.
• We have 3 recognised central midfielders to play in 3 CM positions. One of those players, Pedro Obiang, is out injured for the rest of the season. There’s also Pablo Zabaleta who has played there in the last two games and not looked particularly impressive. A further problem with playing Zab in midfield is that it leaves Sam Byram playing at RB and he’s been distinctly under par in his limited appearances in the first team. Josh Cullen, who had a strong season with Bradford in League One two years ago and subsequently spent the first half of this season struggling to establish himself in Bolton Wanderers’ first team, returned to the club in January and has been on the bench for the last couple of games so he’s a further option.
• In addition to those players, there is also Manuel Lanzini and João Mário. Neither of them are orthodox central midfielders but both can play there if required. Both can also play as one of the front two. Mário has been used further forward in his two games thus far, but it’s unclear what the plan is for him when we have a greater number of forwards fit and available. Lanzini is injured for the next 6 weeks, so that leaves us with, at best, 5 CM options if you include Cullen, Mário, and Zabaleta.
• Excluding the two players mentioned above, West Ham currently have 5 forwards to play in 2 central positions. One of those is Andy Carroll and should therefore be immediately discounted. Another 2 are Marko Arnautović and Michail Antonio, who are predominantly wide players. Arnautović is out with a hamstring injury for an undetermined amount of time, while Antonio has recently returned from a groin injury; the last few times Antonio has come back from muscle injuries, it’s either taken him a few weeks to get back up to full speed or he’s relapsed and re-injured himself shortly after returning. The final two are Javier Hernández, a man with undoubted talents but someone who has largely looked a poor fit for our system under Moyes, and Jordan Hugill, a technically limited but physically disruptive centre forward whose primary attributes are holding the ball up and bullying opposition defenders rather than directly providing a goal threat.
• Rounding out the squad are a pair of 18-year olds. Domingos Quina is a diminutive attacking midfielder who is slight in stature and hasn’t made much of an impression in his sporadic cup appearances so far for West Ham. Sead Hakšabanović is more experienced but half of his ~50 first team appearances came in the second tier in Sweden. He’s a winger who plays from the left wing and therefore doesn’t comfortably fit into the current shape favoured by Moyes.
• Something that hasn’t been remarked upon by anyone is that we have no left-footed midfielders or attackers (barring Carroll). In fact, there are only 3 left-footed players in the whole squad (Ogbonna, Masuaku, Cresswell). That leaves this West Ham team unbalanced and predictable when going forward.

Having only picked up 2 points from a very presentable run of games — Bournemouth (H); Palace (H); Brighton (A) — next weekend’s match against Watford takes on enormous significance. With a horrendous run of fixtures from mid-March onwards, West Ham need to put some points on the board sooner rather than later if they want to distance themselves from the bottom three. The club have taken an enormous gamble by failing to reinforce this squad in the transfer market, leaving them perilously short in several key areas and reliant on previously unreliable players in others.

Things are looking bleak.