Three things we learned about West Ham after FA Cup loss v Man United
West Ham were knocked out of the FA Cup last night in the fifth round tie with Manchester United at Old Trafford.
The Hammers held United at 0-0 as the game advanced to extra time, but were ultimately undone by a 97th minute Scott McTominay goal.
The defeat ends any chance of silverware this season for David Moyes’ side.
With that in mind, West Ham Zone have highlighted three things we learned in last night’s game.
We’re lacking up top
There’s no denying the quality of Michail Antonio. His transition from winger to out and out striker has saved us about £30m in trying to find a number nine. The lack of back-up is the concern.
Moyes went with Yarmolenko up top at Old Trafford. Yes, he has an impressive goal return throughout his career, but the Ukrainian is lightweight. He limped off last night after barely running around.
We’ve heard a lot of good things about Mipo Odubecko, the 18-year-old prospect who replaced him. It’s harsh to say but he was largely ineffective, so much so, that Moyes pulled him off again without playing an hour.
Moyes doesn’t mess about
The manager’s handling of Odubecko can be argued either way. Some will say he was harsh to pull the striker off having initially subbed him on. Others will say it was the right thing to do as most of the play was passing him by.
Ultimately, we were going for broke in a game we were losing. The youngster wasn’t offering us much up top and the boss was right to pull him off. It’s not as if he made any errors, he didn’t do anything particularly wrong.
It was just a bit much for him to come up against a team with Fernandes, Rashford, Maguire and co, all full internationals. It was cutthroat from Moyes but a learning curve for Odubecko. The Scot is said to be a big fan of the youngster and we’ll see him in the first team again, no doubt.
Injury adaptations
We lost three players to injuries last night. Having gone all season suffering hardly any, we lost Ogbonna, Diop and Yarmolenko all before 60 minutes played.
Moyes chose to revert to five at the back in the second half, asking Vladimir Coufal to play as a centre half and Ben Johnson to play left wing-back, again. As a whole, the team did well to adapt. Johnson was actually one of our best players on the night.
We ended the game having made six substitutes overall and playing a completely different formation to the one we started with. Despite all the changes, we were always in the game and defended very well.
In other West Ham news, Peter Crouch has claimed the owners would rather see us finish in the top five than win a cup.