West Ham turned in a shocking performance at the London Stadium over the weekend as they were outclassed 2-0 by Everton. The likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United have found the London Stadium a tough venue to pick up points from, but Manuel Pellegrini’s side were simply not at the races as Everton emerged comfortable winners.

As it’s often happened in such games this season, Saturday was another edition of the “Fab & Rice” show- where West Ham as a team play poorly, Fabianski makes several saves to keep the scoreline respectable and Declan Rice is the best of a bad bunch of outfield players.

Lucas Perez came in for real flak- Football London termed him “useless”. The Spaniard earned a rare start, but was anonymous and was hooked soon as Pellegrini sent on early replacements in a desperate attempt to salvage something from the game. Neither Pedro Obiang nor he made any compelling reason for the manager to start them in future games. [Read more…]

Here are our talking points from West Ham’s shock 2-0 defeat at home against Everton over the weekend, described by Hammers boss Manuel Pellegrini as the club’s “worst performance of the season”.

The warning signs were already there: West Ham’s performances over strugglers Cardiff and Huddersfield earlier this month were very ordinary too. The warning signs were there, but the fact that the loss against the Bluebirds was away from home (and West Ham tend to be inconsistent on the road), and the late comeback over the Terriers papered over the cracks. However this was a big jolt- a loss at home and to Everton, who like West Ham, have been up and down away from Goodison Park this season. None of the pre-match predictions from the pundits had predicted an Everton win despite them coming into this clash on the back of a victory over Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea.

Set piece defending continues to be poor: Huddersfield’s first goal in the previous game week came from a corner. Everton’s first one here came from a near identical set piece- Kurt Zouma scored, with neither Diop nor Zabaleta covering themselves in glory.

Does the 4-4-2 work for West Ham?: Pellegrini chose to start with the pair of Marko Arnautovic and Lucas Perez upfront, with Javier Hernandez, the hero of the 4-3 win over Cardiff, on the bench. Perez, apart from the brace he netted against Cardiff, has done virtually nothing in his spell here, and was literally anonymous before being hooked off. Arnautovic was a little better, but way off the heights we know he can reach. [Read more…]