West Ham failure to replace Sebastien Haller finally coming back to bite them
By Jak Richardson
A late Neal Maupay equaliser last night meant that West Ham are still yet to take three points off of Brighton in the Premier League after nine attempts, with last night’s draw taking David Moyes’ side to a winless league run of three games.
It seemed both winless runs would be put to an end when Tomas Soucek’s fourth-minute header got the host’s off to a dream start, before Michael Antonio’s 49th-minute goal looked to put the game to bed before being ruled out. Despite the intervention of VAR, things were looking good for the Hammers.
However, it is less about the chances that West Ham put away and more the ones they didn’t. Plenty of missed opportunities throughout the game meant that a 10-man Brighton were able to return home with a point after Maupay’s acrobatic 89th-minute equaliser.
In his post-match interview [BT Sport], Moyes himself said: “We made enough chances to nick the game.”
And when asked about Michael Antonio’s recent lack of firepower he responded “I think he has set high standards and expectations. I hope it is like any striker who goes through periods of goals and I am hoping we get a bundle of goals from Micky soon”
When you are looking to break into the Premier League top four, West Ham fan’s will be hoping that their manager is operating on a bit more than just “hope”.
Of course, Antonio has been a player revived under Moyes. The Jamaican international’s 39 goal contributions in just 59 games during Moyes’ most recent spell at West Ham is an incredible return for a player that was once used as a right back.
That is the problem there though, Antonio isn’t an out and out striker. When West Ham sold striker Sebastian Haller in January 2021, many would have expected to have at least signed a back up striker in the two transfer windows that the Hammers have had at their disposal.
Sure, things have gone very well in the time since Haller left, for both his replacement Antonio and the club, but not having at least a back up striker to Antonio was surely always going to come back to haunt them.
And haunted them it has.
Antonio’s recent run of just two goals in his last 9 Premier League games has highlighted all of the issues. He looks tired. Without someone there to motivate, or push Antonio for his place, the striker appears to have gone flat.
Moyes and his staff will surely be looking to bring in a new striker in January, or this barren run could only get worse.
In other West Ham news, UEFA took major financial action over the Irons on Tuesday.
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