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The sorry state of West Ham United’s defending against Newcastle United left leading pundits Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer in total agreement about their Premier League defeat.
Indeed, dreadful defending cost West Ham United against Newcastle, who raced into a two-goal lead in a game they eventually lost 3-1.
We are all but relegated — how would you feel about keeping Nuno in the Championship? 🧑💼
Or was that performance the last straw? 😡
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Head coach Nuno Espirito Santo clearly deserves a lot of blame on that front. He got his team selection wrong and it cost the Irons very dearly.
Still, the players involved could still have carried out the plan in a better fashion. Quite what both Jean-Clair Todibo and Mads Hermansen were thinking for the first goal boggles the mind.
Either way, neither Lineker nor Shearer were impressed.
Lineker and Shearer think West Ham are down
Speaking about the Newcastle game on The Rest Is Football, a blunt Shearer said: “They didn’t know whether to press, they didn’t know whether to sit off. In the end, they just did neither and then Newcastle could sort of play through them.
“The mistakes defensively. They were rotten, they were all over the place West Ham.”
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Clearly a legend but a few dissenting voices 👀
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Lineker was almost laughing when he added: “The first goal was an absolute shambles, wasn’t it?”
When discussing the likelihood that West Ham drop into the Championship, Lineker said: “Grim times for West Ham fans. You never know in football but I think Spurs should be able to grind out a point [and relegate West Ham].”
Shearer added: “You would think so.”
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The fact is that West Ham have one of the worst defensive lines across Europe’s major five leagues.
Only six teams across the continent playing in La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A, the Premier League and the Bundesliga have conceded more than West Ham this season (65).
That porous backline is what is sending West Ham to the Championship. Had Axel Disasi not arrived in January to help shore things up a little bit, they could have gone months ago.
West Ham are on the brink of relegation and while there are so many reasons for that – largely the decisions made at executive level – the dreadful way in which they have defended for most of the season is the one that should be the easiest to fix.
They patched it up but couldn’t stop the leak and oh how it has cost them.
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