21/09/2013
15:00
Boleyn Ground
West Ham United vs Everton
Goalscorers:
1-0 Ravel Morrison 31'
1-1 Leighton Baines 62'
2-1 Mark Noble 76'
2-2 Leighton Baines 83'
2-3 Romelu Lukaku 85'
Analysis
If I had to use one word to sum up Saturday's result and performance, it'd be: Typical.
It's typical of West Ham in recent years to get themselves into a decent position and blow it. It's typical of our players to make some poor decisions. It's typical of an opposition to take full advantage of our mistakes and punish them. And it's typical of an opposition player to score on his debut.
Were there positives? Yes. Mark Noble had a very good game until he was sent off. Ravel Morrison continues to impress without setting the world alight. Mladen Petric seemed to impress more in half an hour than Modibo Maiga has managed in more than six hours so far this season.
Despite the positives, the overriding feeling is one of dismay - and that is what I'm going to focus on to start.
I may as well begin with the real turning point in the game - Mark Noble's red card.
As I mentioned above, Noble was having a good game until he saw red. 28 of 35 passes were accurate, three chances created, four successful tackles, and a typically calm and clinical penalty kick made it seem that Noble would be the match winner.
But some poor decision making cost Noble, and West Ham, greatly. In his younger years, Noble could regularly be seen making clumsy challenges in unecessary positions, but it seemed that he'd stamped that out of his game.
However, on Saturday that characteristic reared it's head once more. There seems to be a bit of a split opinion on whether or not Noble got the ball with his final foul of the game, but from what I've seen, I don't think he did.
But it's not just that foul that cost Noble. People have said that his first booking was a bit soft. Maybe it was. But Noble it was the first foul Noble had made in 13 minutes, and the referree had little choice.
The image below shows Noble's fouls in the game. What stands out to me, is that three of them are not in particularly dangerous positions. There is an argument that Noble didn't need to make any of the challenges that he got wrong.
Up until Noble's sending off, everything seemed to be going well on the surface. But the facts are that we only managed two shots on target in the game - one a penalty, and one a deflected effort for Ravel's opener.
We don't seem to be carving open the opportunities that we were last season. People will point to the absense of Andy Carroll, but with the lack of creativity we are serving up, there appears to be little that even he could do with the scraps.
For me, Matt Jarvis was the main culprit once again. Jarvis is widely recognised as the main attacking outlet of our side, with his crossing touted as one of the real weapons in or arsenal.
This season, Jarvis has been accurate with just 7 of 36 crosses, and on Saturday he hit his target with 1 of his 6 attempts. For a player of Jarvis' ability, this is not good enough. I know he got an assist, but he really isn't creating enough dangerous opportunities for my liking.
The image below shows Jarvis' attempted crosses against Everton. (Red = Unsuccessful, Green = successful, Yellow = led directly to a shot).
As I mentioned in the intro, there were one or two positives. The main one was the promising cameo of Mladen Petric. The Croat was full of running, and he work that led to the penalty kick was something we haven't seen at all from Modibo Maiga this season.
However, what stood out to me was the difference in how we used the two strikers. All season, we've been playing toward Maiga as if he were Andy carroll (which he clearly is not!), hitting him from range, putting the ball up for him to battle with defenders for, and asking him to hold up the ball.
I know Petric wasn't on the field for a massive amount of time, but the approach was definitely different.
Firstly, Maiga was involved in 11 headed duels, winning 5. Petric wasn't involved in a single aerial duel. None of his passes were made with his head either, showing that he wasn't served up anything in the air.
The other thing that struck me was that Jussi Jaaskelainen regularly searches out Maiga with long balls forward, but attempted none toward Petric. The images below show the passes received by Maiga (first image) and Petric (second image). Although Petric received far fewer, you can see that the range of passes is far smaller, with only one coming from the defence (Winston Reid).
I wrote in my new signing spotlight of Petric that he needed the ball into feet to be effective. Let's hope that this is an approach that the side will adopt.
To be honest, I just want to put this game behind me, as I'm sure we all do.
We have a big week coming up. A win against Cardiff in the Capital One Cup will be the perfect tonic for a couple of humbling results in recent weeks, whilst a visit to the North East to face Hull City next Saturday presents as a very winnable away game.
This time next week, let's hope I'm writing about a very good three points off the back of a great cup win.
Onwards and upwards.
General Play
4-2-3-1 Formation 4-2-3-1
(-34) Jussi Jääskeläinen - Tim Howard (-13)
(13) Joey O'Brien - Seamus Coleman (-5)
(-15) James Collins - Phil Jagielka (19)
(31) Winston Reid - Sylvain Distin (13)
(-35) Rǎzvan Raţ - Leighton Baines (109)
(27) Mark Noble - Leon Osman (4)
(3) Ravel Morrison - Gareth Barry (19)
(29) Mohamed Diamé - Kevin Mirallas (16)
(19) Kevin Nolan - Ross Barkley (1)
(7) Matt Jarvis - Steven Naismith (-4)
(-9) Modibo Maïga - Nikica Jelavic (-11)
(-8) Mladen Petrić - James McCarthy (-10)
(-11) Ricardo Vâz Te - Romelu Lukaku (38)
(-1) Matthew Taylor - Bryan Oviedo (5)
Best Performance
(31) Winston Reid - Leighton Baines (109)
Worst Performance
(-35) Rǎzvan Raţ - Tim Howard (-13)
41% Possession 59%
315 Passes Attempted 528
Rǎzvan Raţ 42 Most Attempted 88 Gareth Barry
72% Passing Accuracy 83%
57% In Opp. Half 76%
Mohamed Diamé 87% Best Accuracy 97% Leon Osman
67 Long Balls 67
Rǎzvan Raţ 13 Most Long Balls (excl. GK) Phil Jagielka 16
Most Frequent Pass Combination
O'Brien to Morrison 8 - 18 Barry to Barkley
20 Aerial Duels Won 21
49% Success 51%
Winston Reid 5 Most Won 4 Gareth Barry
Rǎzvan Raţ 59 Most Touches 101 Gareth Barry
Offensive Play
10 Attempts on Goal 10
2 On Target 4
5 Off Target 4
3 Blocked 2
6 From Outside the Box 5
Mohamed Diamé 4 Most Shots 3 Romelu Lukaku
6 Key Passes 6
Mark Noble 3 Most Key Passes 1 James McCarthy
15 Crosses 23
Matt Jarvis 6 Most Attempted 9 Kevin Mirallas
4 Successful Crosses 4
27% Success 17%
Mark Noble 2 Most Successful 2 Kevin Mirallas
Defensive Play
26 Tackles Attempted 17
22 Successful Tackles 17
85% Success 100%
Mohamed Diamé 7 Most Tackles 5 Leighton Baines
32 Clearances 44
James Collins 12 Most Clearances 11 Phil Jagielka
15 Interceptions 8
Winston Reid 4 Most Interceptions 2 Gareth Barry
2 Shot Blocks 3
James Collins 1 Most Shot Blocks 1 Gareth Barry
- 6yrd Blocks -
- Most 6yrd Blocks -
Discipline
17 Fouls 12
4 Most Fouls 3
3 Yellow Cards 1
West Ham United: Ravel Morrison, Mohamed Diamé, Mark Noble
Everton: Ross Barkley
1 Red Cards 0
West Ham United: Mark Noble
Everton:
Head to Heads
Jussi Jääskeläinen vs Tim Howard
3 Goals Conceded 2
2 Saves 0
1 Crosses Claimed 1
18 Total Passes 21
7 Accurate Passes 12
39% Success 57%
15 Long Balls 14
83% % 67%
5 Throw Outs 11
0 Kick from Hand 1
0 Errors Leading to Shot 0
0 Errors Leading to Goal 0
Modibo Maïga 4 Most Passed To 12 Phil Jagielka
Rǎzvan Raţ vs Leighton Baines
1 Aerial Duels 3
1 Duels Won 2
100% Success 67%
0 Tackles Attempted 5
0 Tackles Completed 5
- Success 100%
6 Clearances 7
1 Interceptions 1
0 Blocks 0
0 6yrd Blocks 0
0 Errors Leading to Shot 0
0 Errors Leading to Goal 0
44 Passes Attempted 45
31 Successful 40
70% Success 89%
2 Crosses Attempted 7
1 Successful 1
50% Success 14%
1 Chances Created 1
0 Attempts on Goal 2
0 On Target 2
0 Goals 2
6 Most Passed To 9
Ravel Morrison vs Ross Barkley
33 Passes Attempted 61
27 Successful 50
82% Success 82%
1 Key Passes 1
0 Assists 0
1 Attempts on Goal 2
1 On Target 0
1 Goals 0
0 Tackles Attempted 1
0 Tackles Completed 1
#DIV/0!
0 Clearances 1
1 Interceptions 0
0 Blocks 0
0 6yrd Blocks 0
0 Errors Leading to Shot 0
0 Errors Leading to Goal 0
Mark Noble 5 Most Passed To 14 Gareth Barry
Modibo Maïga vs Romelu Lukaku
1 Attempts on Goal 3
0 On Target 1
0 Goals 1
0 Key Passes 0
0 Assists 0
18 Passes Attempted 26
10 Successful 20
56% Success 77%
11 Aerial Duels 4
5 Duels Won 2
45% Success 50%
Kevin Nolan 3 Most Passed To 9 Ross Barkley
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