Game review: Sunderland – West Ham United

As West Ham United was looking for a fourth consecutive win away from home, they found a tough opposition in Sunderland. Our feature writer Willem Vernooij reports four findings in the game.

Our fullbacks are having a tougher time under Bilic, and that is not unusual

You can say all you want about Sam Allardyce, but one thing is for sure: West Hams defence was solid under his reign.

Bilic on the other hand offers a lot more attacking football, which causes the full backs to have less defensive support from midfield. This causes both Jenkinson and Cresswell to get in tangly situations where they make stupid fouls, as Jenkinson did against Borini, which led to the first goal.

Against Sunderland it wasn’t just the fullbacks to have work harder, in the first half our midfield was incredibly sloppy. This caused to give Sunderland free attempts on goal, which should have led to more than just 2-0.

Our fullbacks offer a lot of attacking threat, but defensively they aren’t as strong as we’d like them to be. To solve this our wingers need to drop back faster and help defending, something I haven’t seen them do too much.

Mark Noble is an undervalued asset in our team.

The joys of a football fan lie in Mark Noble. To see that Dimitri Payet has got flair and skill you don’t need to be an expert in football, but Mark Noble is a whole different story. It is not just his loyalty that stands out, but also the calm he has when in possession.

He first glances if he can play forward, if not? Just play a clean and easy pass back and relocate to be available to receive a pass again. And this is done without slowing down the play.

One word is suitable for Mark Noble: Brilliant.

Zarate is an overrated asset in our team

In contrast to Mark Noble I don’t rate Zarate as much as everyone does. He surely does have his qualities, but in my personal opinion he isn’t the Argentinian god a lot of people still claim him to be.

In times of utter need, when something is needed to change the game around, he isn’t the man to do so. Often he is sloppy, rushed and uncontrolled. He does have flair, but if he uses it in a complete ineffective manner, there is no gain to be achieved in doing so.

The game against Sunderland was an example of that, and he came on but didn’t offer a lot of attacking threat, not is he the most effective finisher in our squad. Personally I’d rather like to see Antonio do his best against last Saturday instead of Zarate.

Why weren’t we knocking on the door more in the last 20 minutes?

This is a repetitive conclusion I’ve seen more this season, and that is that after the red card by Jeremain Lens and the 2-2 by Dimitri Payet we were in the best position to press on and force a third goal.

But we didn’t. There wasn’t too much of an attacking threat I’d like to be. There wasn’t any pressure on their defence, not too many shots.

And that left me quite disappointed, because this lack of pressure from time to time was the same issue against Norwich last week. Against highly attacking teams a counter strategy can work great, but against teams like Sunderland and Norwich, whom use the same strategy, you need to be pressing high up the pitch when they’re in possession. And that is what Sunderland did superbly. Every time they lost possession they made sure they were pressing with such force to regain possession quickly.

West Ham should have responded by doing the exact same, when they are pressing you do the same. Don’t try and wait to intercept the pass.