Why West Ham’s bruising start to the Premier League season cannot be blamed solely on Manuel Pellegrini

Nightmare start | West Ham have lost their opening four Premier League matches
REUTERS/David Klein
Tony Evans4 September 2018

Did anyone really believe that things would be different for West Ham this season? The campaign in East London has opened with the most predictable meltdown of the Premier League’s opening weeks.

The main question now is whether the situation will spiral out of control.

The 1-0 defeat by Wolves at the London Stadium on Saturday was dispiriting. New players, new manager, same old issues.

There was little urgency in West Ham’s play. Opponents - especially Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho - were allowed time on the ball. Pressing appears to be a dirty word in Stratford. Defending was often shambolic.

When Manuel Pellegrini’s team had possession there was no zip in their passing. Too many players appeared to expect their team-mates to do the hard work. The side lacked commitment, belief and ambition.

This is not how it was supposed to be after the summer’s £100million spending spree.

Sadly, fans have seen it all before. It is barely September and another relegation battle seems inevitable. In Stratford the contusions appear in claret and blue, not black and blue, as blow after blow rains down on the Hammers.

Pellegrini is an unlikely candidate to break the cycle of torture.

The Chilean won the title with Manchester City but a team with West Ham’s record of turmoil could have done with a charismatic presence, an inspiring manager who could energise the dressing room and lift spirits across the club.

The 64-year-old had spent the previous two years in presumably lucrative semi-retirement at Hebei China Fortune. Surely the future should look, well, a little fresher?

For City, Pellegrini was a safe pair of hands, a calming influence on the club after Roberto Mancini’s explosive tenure left the squad in uproar. He was babysitting the job until Pep Guardiola decided he was ready to take control at the Etihad. The change of managers was conducted with an unsentimental brutality that left many City fans feeling sorry for Pellegrini. They lauded him with a banner using The Smiths’ This Charming Man song title.

There were a number of City players who professed to be immune to the Chilean’s charms and felt that he calmed things down a little too much with tactics that took some of the fire out of the team.

David Sullivan and David Gold have at least given Pellegrini a director of football that the manager trusts. Mario Husillos worked with him at Malaga.

In Pictures | West Ham vs Wolves | 01/09/2018

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Sullivan has a reputation for meddling in transfers and the Hammers co-owner has been vocal in the past about expressing his dismay at signings who failed to fire.

Patience in the boardroom will be severely tested after the international break, with Everton, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham making up five of the next six League games. It could be a tough two months.

But Pellegrini is not the real issue at West Ham: the fish rots from the head. Almost all the problems at the London Stadium can be traced back to the boardroom.

The idiosyncratic, incoherent and frequently changeable policies that have characterised the eight years of the Gold and Sullivan era have led to this point.

If Pellegrini turns things round it will be a bigger achievement than winning the title with Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Yaya Toure, Vincent Kompany and City’s mega-expensive supporting cast.

If he cannot change the culture of West Ham, it will be a bruising season for the manager and everyone connected with the club.

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