Manuel Pellegrini: West Ham United’s 17th manager

[Cuenca 'ammer]

pentonville

if you are talking about my exchange with IB - he's talking about Moyes going back to Everton not us......well speculating that is.

[Pentonville]

Cuenca, and there's me thinking this was a thread about Pelli. I was swayed by IB's previous in my comments.

[Cuenca 'ammer]

it is mate..

my fault for posting the fact that Moyes has been quoted as saying he wants to get back into management

coupled with the fact that the papers are saying that Pellers is on shaky ground - then IB mentioned that he might be going back to Goodison. it was a tenuous link and as I say my fault.

me putting 2+2 and coming up with 5

bet he would come back here in a shot though (not that I am endorsing this)

[Wilko1304]

Possession football got my local team Swansea City relegated. They would out pass most teams when they played home (top teams included) but when you have no cutting edge up front, it counts for **** all. All I ask from Pellegrini is to have a plan B when A isn't working. At least try something different and mix it up a bit when we struggle to break teams down.

Bad football got them relegated. That's the issue, these things aren't black and white. Possession football got Swansea promoted, made them a short-term Premier League success and a cup final.

Failing to execute a plan is the problem, not the plan itself.

[Crossd_Hammrs]

The news I'm reading in Australia this evening sources C&H seemingly reporting the board aren't happy with Pellegrini's results nor transfers, particularly Fornals, Roberto and Ajeti.
Also says sacking him isn't an option.

[hammerman11]

see how they feel after the next 5 matches: burnley a spurs h Chelsea a wolves a arsenal h that would take us to 10 games without a win and in the bottom 3 I would think !

pelle has to change something as the same old isn't working and we have been found out as shlevey said they knew we were slow in midfield and play a high line. pelle made it easier by picking our two slowest fullbacks. genious for 10m a year !

sully will only act if our PL stauts and thus his gravy train is threatened ! It may come close if we continue like this !

[YorksHammer]

History repeats, it's the exact same from Bilic and Sam's reigns - even their second Premier League seasons, if I'm right, there were similar messages.

They won't (or can't) sack him because the immediate cost of that is something in the region of £12m cost in compensation for the rest of his contract.

Again, as I've said elsewhere, some transfers just don't come off, either immediately or at all, regardless of how much scouting and analysis you do of a player. Harsh to judge a manager on transfers that initially seem like good moves for a certain profile of player.

Like, you could say 'oh, we had the option of Jordan or Lobotka in the summer, why didn't we go for them?' but what's to say that either of those wouldn't have had exactly the same settling issues as Fornals? They've both stayed in the same league, in Lobotka's case the same team, so of course they're continuing to perform at a similar level to before because they don't have to settle in a different league with a different style.

One of the reasons that Ligue 1, and even Ligue 2, players settle well into the Premier League is because they come from a league which probably has the closest physical style to the Premier League so the adaptation is much easier for them to handle.

The only question mark, in my opinion, is whether we were right to move for Fornals instead of that more combative central midfield presence we seem to be in need of.

[Patito]

The only question mark, in my opinion, is whether we were right to move for Fornals instead of that more combative central midfield presence we seem to be in need of.

It shouldn't be a case of either or. We should have brought in Ascacibar or another combative midfielder as well as what we did.

[S-H]

Absolutely right, Pat.

[chigwells finest]

made the mistake that yarmolenko/ and lanzini return to full fitness would be enough with Fornals and Haller , which was ok until the wheels fell off in October ., we lack pace in too many positions and it will be the end of pellegrini ( an us too ) unless this is addressed in January

also, IF Sanchez cannot get a place in this midfield , then he really shouldnt be in the squad either

[Crossd_Hammrs]

The only thing I find more more baffling than some of Peller's team selections and tactics are last summer's transfers.
Don't Pelegrini & Husillos have any idea of how much money will or will not be available? Do they just think they can beat the club transfer record over and over?

I'm struggling to find the logic behind the Fornals signing.
I'm not saying signing him itself was a bad decisiion - he's young, he looked great, we were all excited - but to spend so much on him when we all believe other areas were/are more urgent seems baffling. Especially as he always seems to be played out of position! That just strikes me as spending all our transfer funds on a backup player!
Having said that, perhaps M&M thought we needed more pace in the attacking areas as a priority but that still doesn't explain why he's played out of position or on the bench though. Surely if Antonio was fit Fornals would be even lower down the pecking order.

I don't think Ajeti has really had much of an opportunity to show what he can or can't do yet* - but at 8m he wasn't too much of a gamble for a backup option. (*I didn't see the second half of Newcastle - prior to that he'd played just 20 PL mins! But why release all those other strikers to bring in someone else that's not first-team-ready at the expense of fixing the midfield?)
More concerning is Haller's lack of impact. It may not be his fault, but why spend a big wedge on a player that doesn't fit the system nor players we currently have?

Roberto looked very shaky to start with, but now he looks to me exactly what he is - a backup keeper acquired on a free. I don't think he's especially bad: the odd blunder, yes, but also some good saves. We've been spoiled by the brilliance of Fabianski who has helped disguise how dodgy our defence have been all season. But if we are going to persist with such a high back line wouldn't a different style of keeper have been more sensible?

I think it's hard to blame any owner if they became a bit reluctant to keep bankrolling this sort of transfer activity with the sort of performances we've endured this season.
Nearly the whole team is Pelegrini's and lately the football is almost as bad as any I've seen in 30-something years!

And while I'm not advocating sacking him, and know his job isn't under threat, but how is it other managers worry about losing their jobs while at West Ham there's always too much compensation for it to be an option?
Even Klopp made a (over-the-top) remark about getting sacked at the weekend for a poor result.

[Sloop John B]

Why did we let two strikers who were on massive wages and wanted to leave to get first team football go in the summer?

You may not like it but the answer is bleeding obvious.

[S-H]

Why did we let two strikers who were on massive wages and wanted to leave to get first team football go in the summer?

You may not like it but the answer is bleeding obvious.

[YorksHammer]

It shouldn't be a case of either or. We should have brought in Ascacibar or another combative midfielder as well as what we did.

I don't disagree, Pat, but then the question isn't with Pellegrini - if (as reported) he wanted to sign Ascacibar it becomes a question of where's the money? And was there as broken 'promise' there, because Pellegrini was pretty clear we needed to replace Obiang if he was sold?

So from a Pellegrini perspective - if he was offered either/or and went for Fornals instead, it's a case of why.

From a board perspective - if Pellegrini wanted Fornals and Ascacibar (or similar) why haven't they backed him?

[Sloop John B]

From a board perspective - if Pellegrini wanted Fornals and Ascacibar (or similar) why haven't they backed him?

Could we have fit another overseas player into the squad?

[Ozza]

Good questions York’s

[Croydon]

From a board perspective - if Pellegrini wanted Fornals and Ascacibar (or similar) why haven't they backed him?

They don't really have the best history of backing managers though, do they?

[Patito]

So from a Pellegrini perspective - if he was offered either/or and went for Fornals instead, it's a case of why.

He went for both. We 'ran out of time' to get Ascacibar...

[YorksHammer]

Ah yes, the old 'ran out of time' line. Wasn't that what happened with William Carvalho as well? Or was that the one where we made a derisory bid?

EDIT: Actually, wasn't Carvalho a little of both? Sporting rejected two bids from us and then supposedly came back to accept too late for us to complete the deal? That was also the one where the leaked email said 'accept this now or we're off to loan someone from PSG', if I'm remembering rightly.

Could we have fit another overseas player into the squad?

Now that you mention it, I think we couldn't have done without shuffling the deck. Maybe leaving someone like Reid or Sanchez out for the early part of the season while we try and sell someone, as we ended up doing with Hernandez.

Either way, if we were pursuing him and wanted him, we'd have found a solution. You don't have to name every overseas player in your PL squad, after all, you can leave them out if you want to.

[Sloop John B]

Now that you mention it, I think we couldn't have done without shuffling the deck. Maybe leaving someone like Reid or Sanchez out for the early part of the season while we try and sell someone, as we ended up doing with Hernandez.

Either way, if we were pursuing him and wanted him, we'd have found a solution. You don't have to name every overseas player in your PL squad, after all, you can leave them out if you want to.

Leaving Reid out might have been a possibility although it's not the best option in terms of what it says to the player - given that I think they presumed he'd be fit enough to feature at the time.

I think the solution was to go with what they've got. I susepct there will be a big money central midfielder coming in the summer