Woeful West Ham seek improvement against Everton

Despite an ambitious offseason, West Ham are winless to start their Premier League campaign. They look for their first victory against Everton on Sunday.

In 2016, Manchester United were reportedly willing to pay Lazio €50 million for attacking midfielder Felipe Anderson. The fact United were interested enough in Anderson to have supposedly been preparing a bid of that magnitude made the Brazilian’s eventual €36 million move to West Ham (not quite €50 million, but still enough to be West Ham’s record signing) this past summer seem a bit unusual.

How does a player go from being linked to a club at the absolute top of English soccer’s hierarchy (for that amount of money, no less) to, just two years later, signing for one that many felt were destined for relegation for much of last season?

Some may point to Anderson’s stock declining since the time of United’s alleged interest as the reason West Ham were his ultimate destination. And while it’s true Anderson hasn’t been able to put together a season as statistically impressive as the 10-goal, seven-assist breakout season he had for Lazio in 2014-15, he’s still only 25 and coming off a sneakily resurgent campaign.

Per Understat, despite only playing 1,139 Serie A minutes last season (a knee injury caused him to miss the first part of 2017-18 and a falling out with Lazio manager Simone Inzaghi is thought to have impacted his playing time after that), Anderson still managed to tally four goals and seven assists (that translates to a robust .55 assists per 90 minutes).

So, a talented player in the prime of his career, who has proven himself in one of Europe’s top leagues, has gone to play for a club that less than a year ago thought David Moyes was the cure for all that ailed them. Why? The easy answer: money. Premier League teams have a lot of it. That’s how you end up with Jean Michael Seri, a former target of Barcelona’s, signing with newly-promoted Fulham.

For a player wanting to ply his trade in the world’s most popular league, there are only so many roster spots available on the big six clubs. Much to Manchester City’s disappointment, their bench isn’t long enough for all the good attacking midfielders in the world to sit on. This means the Premier League’s other 14 teams have gotten involved in some eye-catching transfer fun.

With West Ham, however, the situation is a bit more complex. Former Real Madrid and Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini was hired to manage the team, and heading into this season, West Ham seemed to have genuine ambition — not just to make a fancy signing or two, but to make a legitimate run at seventh place and perhaps beyond. So far, things haven’t gone according to plan.

Pointless after four matches, the Hammers have conceded 10 goals while only scoring two. Their underlying numbers don’t paint a pretty picture, either. Per Understat, West Ham have allowed a league worst 8.61 expected goals, and their meager xG total of 3.79 ranks 17th of the 20 Premier League teams. Matches away to Liverpool and Arsenal haven’t helped West Ham’s cause, but winnable home fixtures against Bournemouth and Wolves have also ended in defeats.

Last season, West Ham were particularly bad at preventing shots. Only relegated Stoke and Sean Dyche’s voodoo-powered Burnley conceded more shots per game than the Hammers. Poor shot prevention has continued to plague West Ham again this season, as they’ve allowed an unsightly 15.5 shots per game thus far (stats per WhoScored).

Aside from their match against Bournemouth, in which West Ham saw 61 percent of the ball and failed to do much of anything with it, the Hammers have ceded a fair bit of possession to their opposition. Defending deep and waiting for counter-attacking opportunities isn’t a wholly unreasonable strategy for a team of West Ham’s caliber (particularly against the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal). West Ham just haven’t been good at defending.

The Hammers have allowed more passes within 20 yards of their own goal (crosses excluded) than any team in the league so far this season. Cries of “small sample size” would echo louder if West Ham weren’t third from bottom in that statistical category last season as well (stats per Understat).

If opposition teams are going to continue to be able to pass and shoot freely near West Ham’s penalty area, there aren’t going to be many opportunities for the club’s record signing to impose himself on matches. Anderson needs the ball if he’s going to have an impact, and he’s currently averaging a lowly .81 shots per 90 minutes, per Understat. Shooting isn’t exclusively what Anderson’s game is about, but such a low shot output from a player expected to contribute heavily in the team’s attack is worrisome.

Reality has harshly intervened on West Ham’s preseason aspirations. The Hammers’ opponents on Merseyside this Sunday, Everton, also know a thing or two about striving to be the best of the rest. It wasn’t terribly long ago the Premier League’s big six was merely a big four, with Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool hoarding the Champions League positions. After a surprise fourth-place finish in the 2004-05 season, Everton finished placed either fifth or sixth in the league five times between 2005 and 2014. Appropriately enough, with the “big six era” now solidly under way, Everton enter Sunday’s match against West Ham in seventh position.

Everton generated a few headlines themselves with their transfer activity this offseason. Some scoffed at the £40 million Everton paid Watford for Richarlison, but surely it’s wiser for the club to spend that kind of money on a 21-year-old with loads of potential than it is to fling cash at sedentary “veteran leaders” like Gylfi Sigurdsson.

It’s early, but Richarlison has looked to be a good buy for the Toffees. Fortunately for West Ham, he isn’t going to play on Sunday due to a red card he picked up in Everton’s match against Bournemouth. The Brazilian is leading Everton in goals and their attack looked listless without him in their most recent match against Huddersfield.

As abject as West Ham have been at defending around their own 18-yard box, a match against an Everton side lacking their primary attacking threat may be just what they require to take initiative and play the kind of proactive, possession-based soccer that Pellegrini is known for. Regardless of how they choose to play, West Ham will need to play better. Their fight to be the best of the rest could morph into a very different (and much less desirable) type of fight if their results don’t improve.