Key factors from West Ham vs. Manchester City
By Liam Price
Combination of Carroll and Antonio
I’ll have to admit, there aren’t many positives to take away from this match for West Ham. First game after your star player from last season leaves and the team were probably looking for a much more unified response. Payet is probably sitting in Marseille laughing over some cheese, baguette and wine, at his all-of-a-sudden good fortune.
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Nonetheless, for the moments that Carroll and Antonio did get the opportunity to insert themselves in the match, they did their best. These two work quite well as a front two, both large figures that can be picked out and expected to win aerial duals. They bring down the ball well and could have been more of a threat, if they were allowed to be.
The West Ham squad did their best in the second half to close down the opposition, starting with the pace on the wings. As a result, Antonio has been asked to come back and help the defenders cover the middle of the pitch.
It will be interesting to see how Snodgrass slots into this team. West Ham has always had an affinity to strikers, could there be a way to have all three playing as a trio? Needless to say, Slaven Bilic will need to look again at his team-sheet and see where he can improve. I’d expect a long night and a tough couple days of training will be in order before he has his answers.