UK Edition
Slaven Bilic not planning defensive reinforcements despite West Ham's frailties
The signing of William Carvalho, the Portugal holding midfield player, from Sporting CP of Lisbon cannot come soon enough for West Ham United. Slaven Bilic, the Hammers' manager, spoke enthusiastically after the 3-2 defeat at Southampton about the performance of £16m signing Javier Hernandez, who had scored twice. But the team's defending means that Hernandez may have to net a hat-trick in every game if his goals are to secure any points.
West Ham have now conceded seven times in two games, and although they will not be the last team to let four in at Old Trafford, as they did on the opening day of the season, three at St Mary's, where Saints had not scored in their previous six games, is a different matter.
As a former international defender, Bilic must be very concerned. True, Bilic lost Winston Reid, arguably his best defender, to a calf injury in the pre-match warm up, and Marko Arnautovic's ugly elbowing of Jack Stephens left West Ham a man short for an hour.
But Nathan Redmond was given five yards of space by Pablo Zabaleta in which to control a pass from Manolo Gabbiadini and return the ball to him for Southampton's first goal. Gabbiadini had run alone from the centre circle to the penalty area to receive Redmond's pass on the blind side of former Saints captain Jose Fonte. At the very least, the considerable physical presence of Carvalho would make such runs longer and more hazardous for opponents.
Fonte was at fault again for the second goal, pulling back Steve Davis to concede a penalty after his initial challenge on the Northern Ireland midfield player failed to win the ball. But again, nobody had tracked Davis or put any pressure on the pass to him. Dusan Tadic has a poor record from the penalty spot and hit his kick straight at Joe Hart, fortunate that the ball went in anyway off the goalkeeper's legs. But if it had rebounded, only Aaron Cresswell was following up and Tadic would have had a simple and unchallenged tap-in.
The third goal was almost unforgivable bearing in mind how hard West Ham had previously fought to level the match. James Ward-Prowse's diagonal cross – unchallenged of course, even in injury time - should have been meat and drink for any Premier League central defender. Fonte, however, was ball-watching and allowed Maya Yoshida to attack the space behind him. Zabaleta, with the best view of the situation, decided on the risky strategy of nudging Yoshida rather than defending the cross properly.
The gamble did not pay off. Again it was a penalty and again only one West Ham player followed up in case Charlie's Austin's kick had been saved or hit the post. Austin suggested that West Ham captain Mark Noble had even helped him by claiming, in an eventually self-destructive piece of gamesmanship, that Hart knew which way the kick would go. Austin changed his mind and scored.
“I’ve got to be honest, I think we got out of jail,” Austin said. “Whether it was a penalty or not, I don’t know. I think if went against us, it’s a harsh one. But that doesn’t matter for us, it’s three points.”
To some extent, it does not matter for West Ham either - the important thing is to prevent such situations from developing. Carvalho should help there but Bilic does not plan to upgrade elsewhere. “We have enough centre backs in our team, if they stay fit of course,” he said. What is it they say about quality, not quantity?