Fortunately I didn’t see any of the West Ham United game last week. Why? I was in City Hall Plaza in Boston, MA for the Boston Red Sox World Series victory parade.
No, more accurately I was at a bar at 9:00 a.m., so I was in that general vicinity, before frantically running to see about 10 minutes of the parade from behind 20 rows of people. Of course, then I made sure I could rush back to the bar so I could order another Boston Lager.
Upon my return, I checked Twitter to see what I was missing. It was easy to see right away it wasn’t much. I was also having a one-eyed iMessage exchange with Matt that went where we lamented the club’s lack of ideas.
We are a side that plays narrowly, but can’t create through the middle of the park. When we are stifled through the middle, we are unable or unwilling to play wider. That leaves us to bypass the midfield entirely, going long and failing to keep any semblance of possession.
I am not opposed to playing direct. Against most of the teams we have played to this point, the situation has arguably called for it.
On Wednesday night, I was watching the New England Revolution on the road in the second led of their MLS Cup tie against Sporting Kansas City. The more experienced Kansas City had to overturn a 2-1 deficit, and were all over the Revolution from the opening kickoff. The Revs kept trying to build from the back, but every pass on the turf seemed to be misplayed and only to invite more pressure. Watching the game, I was screaming at the team to just kick the ball down the field. Sure enough, Kansas City’s winning goal came about after an ill-advised throw from the goalkeeper gifted possession.
Going into the season my hope was that our new signings would give the manager some tactical options. If I was the manager I’d try to play a 4-4-2 of some sort and create some width. Our midfield is struggling to keep the ball anyway, so I wouldn’t be worried about being outmanned in the middle.
I can live with football that might not be the greatest to watch, so long as it’s effective. I can even feel better about us being a “long-ball” team if only we could do better on set pieces, and lobbing the ball to big guys on corners seems to be working about as well as long balls from open play.
I think we are better than this. Hopefully the answer is just playing better. What the major question may well be is how exactly that is accomplished. Paul Lambert – it’s over to you.
The Author
