West Ham vs Leeds ~ Positives and Negatives!

Going through positives and negatives in the game against Leeds United.

West Ham played against Leeds United tonight at Elland Road, with the game ending in a 2-2 draw. Goals coming from Lucas Paqueta and Gianluca Scamacca for West Ham, Willy Gnoto and Rodrigo for Leeds United. Here, I will talk about some positives and negatives that were realised over the course of the 90 minutes!

First of all the positives, as I’d like to take a more positive outlook on the result. At the end of the day, a point is a point, especially considering our current league position and recent form. I think most of the team showed the passion and committment today that the fans have been crying out for for weeks now, which is a sign of improvement (perhaps through Declan Rice as captain or even Mark Noble arriving as Sporting Director a few days prior). Nayef Aguerd had a solid debut in the league after his injury troubles which is very encouraging; partnering him up with Zouma may just help us enough at the back, he looked very comfortable on the ball and never shied away from the opportunity to get into 1v1 situations which is also something we’ve needed for a while. Lucas Paqueta put in an absolutely stellar performance and is definitely the best performance I’ve seen from him since joining in August - he looked like he was reading the game much better, tucked away a great penalty to level the game and just overall looked much more relaxed in the middle of the park in contrast to where he is usually played. Scamacca also looked like a better player tonight, showing that he can play Antonio’s role of moving into the channels but can also stay in that central role where he is most lethal, which I can say for certainty, that West Ham have needed for years. Declan Rice looked like he was captaining the team much better tonight too in comparison to recent games, where he was given criticism by supporters for “throwing his arms up in the air” rather than being a traditional captain. Rice seems to have silenced his critics for now! I liked the re-inclusion of Pablo Fornals in this game; I think he was one of our better players today and frankly, I enjoyed his performance!

Onto the more negative views of the game now. Thilo Kehrer is simply not a left back, and playing him there was questionable from David Moyes. I’m sure fans can understand that Aaron Cresswell has underperformed as of late, but when someone like Emerson is just being wasted, you just have to question the decision to play Kehrer there. Kehrer looked completely out of his depth at left back, giving away the ball cheaply on his weaker left foot and forced Aguerd to do more than he should’ve had to in dangerous situations. Another man in the defence who I believe played below expectation is Craig Dawson, who was beaten for both Leeds United goals. The balls that came through his side were far too easy for the Leeds wingers to capitalise on and it simply isn’t acceptable for a defender to be leaving gaps like that. A player I felt conflicted about was Vladimir Coufal as at times I believed he looked quite good, but 5 minutes later would give away possession in a poor manner. Unfortunately he was forced off from a poor challenge from Crysensio Summerville (in which he did not get carded), but overall, I thought Coufal was better than people are suggesting. Lukas Fabianski is also a player I am conflicted about as during the first half of the season, he seemed one of our best players, but in today’s game (and recent games too), it has seemed like he’s stuck to his goal line! There wasn’t even an attempt to save Willy Gnoto’s goal which, whilst well-struck, may have been able to be reached with fingertips. David Moyes also seemed questionable in his decision making during the game, such as bringing Paqueta and Scamacca off for the likes of Downes and Benrahma when it was clear to me that Benrahma should’ve replaced Bowen instead. Playing Rice, Soucek and Flynn Downes in a midfield 3 didn’t make too much sense either and it was clear we were trying to defend for the remainder of the game.

That’s my takeaway from this match overall, I’m happy with a point but I still think we should’ve won from being 2-1 up, with tragic substitutions being a major factor behind the draw.