Dean White

Wed 24 March 2021 18:00, UK

West Ham have been criticised for the way they failed to hang onto their three-goal lead in the 3-3 draw with Arsenal on Sunday.

In an exclusive interview with West Ham Zone, ex-Irons striker Frank McAvennie expressed his disappointment at the way David Moyes’ men sat back and tried to defend their advantage rather than adding to it before Alexandre Lacazette’s late equaliser at the London Stadium.

As well as McAvennie’s complaints, you didn’t have to look too hard on Twitter on Sunday to see West Ham fans bemoaning the negative style of play once Soucek’s 32nd-minute goal put us 3-0 ahead.

But the way West Ham played after they went three goals tp the good isn’t too dissimilar to the way they’ve operated all season in the Premier League.

Using stats by Wyscout, we’ve drawn up a graph that shows how aggressive teams are at defending in the Premier League and West Ham rank the lowest for challenge intensity [4.6].

Challenge intensity is measured by duels, tackles and interceptions per minute of opponent possession. We’ve stacked Premier League clubs’ challenge intensity up against PPDA, which is opposition passes allowed per defensive action [West Ham, 16.37] to visualise their approach to defending.

As you can see from the above graph, West Ham are one of the most passive teams in the Premier League when it comes to defending.

The graph suggests that opposition teams can play a high number of passes before a Hammers player attempts to win the ball back and that also shows in their challenge intensity being low.

Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds have gained a lot of attention from their insane levels of pressing and these stats show that quite clearly.

Now that West Ham’s approach over the entire season so far has been looked at, let’s go back to Sunday and the capitulation against Arsenal.

Moyes’ men found themselves three goals ahead in the 32nd minute, six minutes later, Soucek scored an own goal that gave the Gunners a glimmer of hope just before half-time.

You can see below how West Ham’s average formation line dropped progressively until the 60th minute, which means the Irons started to sit back more and more.

The above charts also demonstrate how West Ham’s pressing intensity steadily got higher as the match went on despite them starting to sit back more.

West Ham’s low challenge intensity in the second half is also present in the charts below. In the first-half, West Ham players were involved in more defensive duels in the Arsenal half than they were in the second.

Also, the Hammers had just three defensive duels in their box in the first half as they pressed the Gunners higher up the pitch.

You can see below how many more defensive duels took place in Lukasz Fabianski’s penalty area after the break.

Moyes’ substitutions also led to a change in formation late on with Mark Noble replacing Jarrod Bowen in the 74th minute and Ryan Fredericks coming on for Said Benrahma five minutes later.

You can see how the average position of those players who came off the bench were far more reserved than the players they replaced.

While West Ham definitely stood off Arsenal more once they scored their third goal on Saturday, they didn’t really revert back to a style of play that was foreign to them.

Moyes’ side is fifth in the Premier League because his passive way of defending has worked this season – so why wouldn’t he try it against Arsenal after taking some a healthy lead after 32 minutes?

It’s easy to say this with hindsight but clearly, Moyes should have continued with the style of play he enforced early on against Arsenal.

He bucked the trend with the way they played to start with and opted to go back to his tried and tested formula once the advantaged was established.

It’s just a massive shame it didn’t work out but, at the end of the day, conceding two unlucky own-goals just shows how unlucky the Hammers were to not get a result versus Mikel Arteta’s misfiring Gunners.

In other West Ham news, Ally McCoist is delighted by Jesse Lingard’s progress in East London.