Slaven Bilic losing his edge as West Ham fall to third straight defeat in Premier League
- West Ham were defeated 3-0 by Newcastle on Saturday in the Premier League
- Slaven Bilic's side have lost their first three games of the new league season
- The West Ham manager does not seem to know what his backline should be
Slaven Bilic was as civilised as ever, conceding Newcastle’s superiority and stating his responsibility as manager, ‘to be confident and to believe, in good times and bad.’
As he did so, you wondered about the competitive edge he must have once displayed as an international defender. You wanted to see him a little more eaten up by this wretched defeat.
West Ham’s tally of Premier League goals shipped ratchets up to 94 in 51 games and though these are early days, there are no signs that the defensive reinforcements are going shore up the leaky structure.
Slaven Bilic saw his West Ham side lose 3-0 against Newcastle on Saturday afternoon
Joe Hart is not sending confidence coursing through the rearguard. Distribution: average. Command of the box: less than that. At 32, Pablo Zabaleta is well beyond that stage when he can change a great deal.
Bilic, a centre half by trade, has selected four different central defensive pairings for his side’s opening games and does not look like an individual who knows what his own back line should be. There are thought to be tensions in the background about an element of his team selection elsewhere on the field.
There is some mitigation for the manager, whose injury problems are not negligible. Diafra Sakho has barely played in two years. Andy Carroll is not 100 per cent. Winston Reid was missed. Manuel Lanzini’s own recovery from injury led to 18-year-old Declan Rice helping hold midfield. But Newcastle hunted the teenage down, mugging him for their opening goal. There have to be questions about the wisdom of throwing him into such an early storm as this.
West Ham seems like a club bereft of the golden buying touch which secured Dmitri Payet, Cheikhou Kouyate, Lanzini and Sakho. It was a side of inadequate pace on Saturday, lacking that Premier League requirement for rapid transition from defence to attack which Rafael Benitez’s team displayed. Javier Hernandez, another of the new arrivals, was isolated but would have been well served by whining less and focussing more.
West Ham have lost their opening three Premier League games of the new season
Bilic passed up the opportunity to agree that the athletics World Championships have indirectly contributed to difficulties by exiling his side in their first three games. But in their current fragile state West Ham needed that extra obstacle like a hole in the head. Lanzini’s introduction for the unfortunate Rice at half time briefly created more menace but Newcastle didn’t blink.
In his characteristically resourceful way, Benitez has also unearthed several promising young players. Mikel Morino, the 21-year-old deep-lying midfielder on loan from Borussia Dortmund, provided poise, watchfulness, the eye for space and pace, picking out Christian Atsu who crossed for Joselu’s opening goal. The pace of the Premier League occasionally catches out Morino but Benitez made comparisons with Xabi Alonso, whom he brought to Liverpool.
'Alonso’s long passing was better but Merino is more mobile, more dynamic,’ the manager said. The 22-year-old former Arsenal player Isaac Hayden also excelled, linking intuitively with Merino.
Bilic is venturing into the foothills of that place from which a manager’s position becomes unrecoverable, however reasonable they might sound. It was not encouraging to hear Mark Noble – still an influence but certainly past his peak now – state in the aftermath that ‘the atmosphere in the dressing room isn’t great.’ There had been some crumbs of comfort to take from last week’s defeat to Southampton. But ‘this is different, this is worrying,’ Bilic said, honest to a fault.
Slaven Bilic heads to shake the hand of Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez at full-time
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