WHZ View: Benrahma not shooting – West Ham ace looks low on confidence
West Ham went down without a whimper on Sunday evening in the 1-0 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford.
David Moyes set his side up to defend with a back five. Until we went a goal down didn’t have any intentions of taking the game to the hosts.
In the absence of Jesse Lingard, the Hammers were crying out for a creative influence in the final third of the pitch. Sat on the bench until the hour mark was Said Benrahma, who had 17 goals and nine assists in the Championship last season for Brentford.
For whatever reason, it hasn’t quite worked out for him yet at the London Stadium. His lack of efforts on goal are beginning to become alarming, too.
Confidence is key
Benrahma is an incredibly talented footballer. He has two excellent feet and is so quick in possession. He’s proven numerous times how easily he can beat his man, but why isn’t he playing often?
Since making the switch in the summer, the Algerian has made 20 Premier League appearances for the Hammers – half in the starting line-up and the other half off the bench. Worryingly, he’s started just one of the last five matches. Overall, he’s played 1086 minutes of a possible 1800, when he’s been in the matchday squad.
Despite not making a lasting impact the other night, he did make a difference to the way we played. Benrahma completed 83% of his passes, and 100% of his attempted dribbles successfully as we chased the game [WyScout]. The introduction of him and Lanzini put us on the front foot initially and made for a much more open game.
Despite how prolific he was last year, Benrahma is yet to score in claret and blue. He got off to a flying start with two assists in his first three games, gifting us wins against Fulham and Aston Villa. Since making his debut, however, he’s had just nine shots on target all season.
The concerning stat is he’s failing to find the target, or even attempt to now. In his last six appearances, he’s registered just three efforts at goal. They all came against Leeds, a team he played last season and found success against, so he could have been confident to shoot. More worryingly, only one of those shots was on target.
It’s a rapid decline to go from 17 league goals last season to none in 20 appearances. He’s hardly taking shots anymore, it’s potentially a confidence issue. He’s still registered four assists in the top-flight, which have helped us to win some games. But when he signed, it didn’t seem a possibility for him to have not scored still by March.
With our success this campaign already, if we could get Benrahma scoring goals we could end up qualifying for Europe next season. Moyes just needs to drum some confidence into him, first.
In other West Ham news, Ben Johnson had a night to forget against United.