West Ham United head into the international break with just one win so far from seven Premier League games this season.
On Sunday, Everton were 1-0 winners over the Irons at Goodison Park with Neal Maupay’s second half strike enough for the Toffees to record their first league win of the season.
David Moyes’ side go into this month’s international fixtures, the final set before the World Cup break, sat 18th in the league standings having picked up just four points from a possible 21 in the top-flight this term. Here are the talking points from the defeat on Merseyside.
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At the wrong end of the table
West Ham have back-to-back top seven finishes in the last two seasons but find themselves two points away from safety and only three points clear of last place seven games into the new campaign.
There are factors to that, of course: injuries, new signings coming in, playing three times already within 72 hours of matches in the Europa Conference League. But still, being sat in the relegation zone with almost 20% of the league campaign gone is well short of the club’s ambitions.
Performance-wise, West Ham can feel that they should have taken more points than they did against Nottingham Forest, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, and had they been more clinical against Everton, they perhaps could have taken something away from the game. Yet, there is a fine difference between deserving points and actually taking them.
Maybe the international comes at a good time ahead of a jam-packed October that includes three Europa Conference League games and meetings with Liverpool and Manchester United at the end of the next month. Players like Kurt Zouma, Lukasz Fabianski and Pablo Fornals will be among those to benefit from a rest, but the next block of fixtures between the international break and the World Cup simply has to see an improved points return.
Goalscoring issues
West Ham failed to score for a fourth league game out of seven so far this season and in the other three matches, managed to find a way past their opponents once in each game.
With three goals from seven games, they have scored the joint-lowest amount of goals in the Premier League alongside Wolverhampton Wanderers, 20 less than defending champions Manchester City and eight fewer than City’s star talisman Erling Haaland alone.
Against Everton, West Ham had 14 shots in the game, twice the number of their hosts. Yet, really, home goalkeeper Asmir Begovic - in for the injured Jordan Pickford - was hardly tested barring a late chance from substitute Maxwel Cornet.
On expected goals (xG) as per The xG Philosophy, they had an xG value of 1.43 compared to Everton’s 0.43, a stark contrast in fortunes between two sides who have ultimately failed to find league goals all too often this season. But they were separated by one well-taken Maupay strike.
Michail Antonio, Tomas Soucek and Fornals all have a goal each, while Bowen and Gianluca Scamacca are yet to find the mark in the league, as are the likes of Cornet and Said Benrahma. Although in fairness, Moyes has not given too many minutes to his newer players so far this season in the league with the exception of defender Thilo Kehrer, and Cornet should have seen a strike against Chelsea stand.
Team selection debate
Plenty of people on social media had hoped to see Cornet start the game and the fact that he, Benrahma and Scamacca all started on the bench highlighted the depth of attacking talent at Moyes’ disposal now.
Spaniard Fornals, selected ahead of Cornet and Benrahma, really struggled to make an impact in the game and found himself well shepherded by opposing defender Nathan Patterson.
Brazilian playmaker Lucas Paqueta also had a really poor game and struggled to make an impact against an Everton side who had a tough rear-guard to break down - not that the Hammers really tested that all too much.
Bowen is still short of his best by some way but grew into the game and had more of an impact in it as it progressed. Really though, Cornet can feel he should have started, as could Benrahma for the impact he made, even if has done very little in his previous few appearances.
Benrahma injected some attacking life into a side that really struggled going forward, hitting the post with a speculative effort while Cornet forced a save out of Begovic before fluffing his lines when chasing down a Bowen flick-on.
Based on how poor West Ham were before the changes, there is an argument to be had that Cornet and Benrahma should have started over Paqueta and Fornals. Then again, hindsight is an impossible commodity.
With 13 games in all competitions to come in the space of exactly six weeks in between October 1 and November 12 before the break for the World Cup, there is undoubtedly bound to be rotation from Moyes after the international break, with Cornet and Benrahma putting themselves in the run for a chance of a Premier League start imminently.
International break
West Ham and the rest of their Premier League rivals are not in action until the opening weekend of October.
For the Hammers, 12 of their 22 fit senior players are representing their countries, a representation of just the profile of talent the Hammers have in their squad, with England, France, Brazil, Italy and Germany among the nations being represented out of Moyes’ squad.
Of the 10 players not playing for their countries, Manuel Lanzini, Fornals, Benrahma, Zouma have all represented their nations in recent times, while Lukasz Fabianski has retired from Poland duty and Aaron Cresswell has already previously played for England.
Moyes will have around half of his squad to work with and while giving them a rest from games, hopefully can get the senior players not on duty firing on all cylinders. The hope on the ones that are away is that they find form and avoid injury.
A busy October to come
In October, the Hammers have nine games in all competitions, six in the Premier League and three more in the Conference League.
Among that run, West Ham will have trips to Anderlecht, Liverpool and Manchester United, as well as a trip to Southampton and five home games.
The first three league games of the month come against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Fulham and Southampton and on paper, that run is among the easier set of games West Ham will face domestically this season.
If they can come away from that with between six and nine points from that and between four and six points from their Anderlecht double header, the club will be in a much stronger position across all fronts heading into the Liverpool game on October 19 than they are currently in.
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