West Ham quicker to the second balls in 3-0 victory over Fulham
This game’s main story was always going to involve the debut of Andy Carroll. 24 hours after confirmation of his loan from Liverpool, he went straight into Sam Allardyce’s first XI.
That came as little surprise – new signings often need time to settle in, but any doubt about his tactical role was unlikely. As with all Allardyce sides, it was long balls towards the big man straight away – and West Ham went ahead within a minute.
But it wasn’t Carroll’s aerial threat that directly threatened the Fulham defence. In Brede Hangeland the away side had a strong centre-back that relishes physical confrontations, and although Carroll won the majority of his aerial duels (9 from 15, 60%), he didn’t have any headed attempts on goal. His only shot was hit from outside the penalty area, and was blocked.
Indeed, Fulham competed well in the air throughout the game, despite this being West Ham’s main quality going forward. There were 36 aerial confrontations, with the sides evenly-matched in their success rate.
But where West Ham excelled was their old-fashioned, sterotypically English determination to pick up the second balls; regardless of whether it was Carroll or a Fulham defender that won the initial header, West Ham got numbers forward from midfield into the final third. The difference was quite noticeable – West Ham were simply quicker to the loose balls time and time again.
This was crucial in both the first and third goals. For the first, Carroll flicked the ball into the path of Ricardo Vaz Te, who squared for Kevin Nolan to convert. Nolan had a great relationship with Carroll at Newcastle, always getting himself into positions to collect knock-downs, and that partnership will be a prominent feature of West Ham’s gameplan this season.
For the third goal, it was even more obvious. Carroll didn’t win the initial header, with Hangeland meeting the ball – but his poor header was only to the edge of the box. As a trio of Fulham players stood like statues, Matt Taylor reacted first and thumped the ball into the net.
The stats back up this observation. On each of the six occasions a Fulham player made a headed clearance, the ball was picked up by West Ham player. In stark contrast, 71% of West Ham’s headed clearances were successful (ie were cleared into touch, or a teammate collected the ball).
This effect was also obvious when looking at all clearances (which includes the headed clearances depicted above). West Ham’s clearances were successful 74% of the time, Fulham’s just 24%.
It’s not often the game’s key feature can be summed up by looking at clearances – but this was very noticeable, very effective, and very Allardyce.
I wonder if Brenden Rodgers was sure he would get a replacement after he let Carroll go on loan, because now Liverpool have few resources up front. Ok,ok, Carroll doesn’t suit Rodgers’ style, in fact did he really suit Dalglish’s style?, and I’m not a fan of his, but Liverpool only have Suarez, who good player as he is not the most prolific, and Borini, who is played wide. Just wondering before January who will play if Suarez is injured or suspended along with Borini? Good article again ZM.
Don’t think Sahin would have arrived if Carroll wasn’t ready to be offloaded for the season.
Brendan’s made his bed.
Can you back up the statement – ” it was long balls towards the big man straight away” – statistically? With all the heading statistics it makes West Ham sound very one dimensional. I got the impression West Ham played a mixed, direct passing game with a lot of short passing build up play. Another key aspect was the total domination of set pieces when attacking and defending.
I thought that. They passed it round in there own half for a while on occasion before hitting it long to Carroll. I thought Fulham were bad though, there pressing wasn’t good at all in the first half.
Look at the Graphs. Proof is the amount of aerial contests in Fulham’s half and the position of Fulham’s attempted clearances. The lack of headed clearances by Fulham can be summed up by the West Ham corner kick where Hangeland was more concerned about getting in Carrol’s way than about clearing the ball. Getting a head on the ball was hard, heading it clear apparently impossible
It seemed like Fulham players didn’t know what WHam would do at first: Fulham provided very little pressure in midfield, while lacking the positional discipline to prevent space between their defense. West Ham was patient in choosing when to get forward, but the primary method was to get Carrol and Co. in advanced positions and see where the ball fell. A player like Carrol or Crouch stretched the field enough that players had time to pass and even charge forward with the ball. Once the Fulham midfield and forwards applied pressure to the ball further up the pitch they began to come to grips with play.
Aside from that, still love Berbatov as a player.
Didn’t get to see this one today, interesting observation as always.
West Ham should survive now with Carroll, he’ll be the difference maker in lots of the big games this season.
carroll is clearly more suited to a side like this rather than liverpool, but I for one am frustrated by how often he is typecast as the stereotypical english forward. There is no denying what his main attributes are, but he has always had more mobility than people make out.
Clearly his main strengths will not be catered to completely by Liverpool (and I am a great advocate of variety in attack),but personally I thought his strength and size could have been used to pin defenders and act as a ‘wall’ to bounce passes off and occupy defenders, brining them out of the areas they would want to protect. Sort of like an English version of the false nine haha. Can anybody see it or am I just drivelling?
It’s not as much of a false nine as it was Emile Heskey did for England and Villa. He would simply use size and strength to win balls. Carroll is a better goalscorer than Heskey but the role they both play is similar. They may not be the main goal threat but they contribute a lot.
But still, having Carroll as number nine hinders plans of short passing up-tempo type of the game. I like Carroll, but that is not his type of the game.
Obviously he isn’t the ideal forward for that style, but can you say why how he “hinders” liverpool’s game plan. He has decent mobility and given the sort of options they currently have he is a viable alternative. I feel people are too inclined to judge him on the fact that OTHER players choose to smash the ball up towards him.
Look at ibrahimovic, ok clearly superior to carroll technically, but he is actually taller, yet do you see him competing for headers 90% of the time? No, because people give him the ball on the floor, I think it would do no harm to try a passing game with Carroll in the side.
I do not think Carrol hinders passing game not because he is tall – Ibra, Dzeko, Mandzukic – you can have great technical skillset, but Carrol doesnt have it (in my view). Quick short passing that is not what he does at Premiership level.
Great find, I hadn’t thought about winning the knock downs regardless of who won the header. I think fulham picked up on it in the second half, but by then it was too late. Shows the importance of scoring when your on top, kudos to west ham.
Nolan is underrated, a great finisher with good movement from deep, he reminds of Cahill and lampard to a degree, as being a deep lying goal scorer. Fulham were obviously missing dembele and Ruiz, they just couldn’t get their passing game going . They should still have a good season, but I worry about fulhams squad, it’s very thin and injuries to diarra or sidwelll would be big problem.
Why are you only doing English teams? EPL is one of the least interesting leagues tactically yet you concentrate on this and largely ignore La Liga and Serie A.I can’t believe you would review this match but not Osasuna vs Barca or the Super Cup,bet you would have covered the Super Cup if it was the other way around and Chelsea had humiliated Athletico.
La Liga is so boring, also tactically.
Whilst it now looks a massive error by Liverpool to get rid of Carroll without bringing in a replacement, it is good to see him at a team which will play to his strengths. Having said that, West Ham did pass the ball around expertly at times, showing that they have another dimension to their play.
When they came up, I predicted they’d really struggle in the Premier League, but I now think they will avoid relegation. With the service out wide from the likes of Jarvis/Taylor to the big men Carroll/Cole, they should get a fair few goals. Added to this, Diame and Nolan have looked impressive, with the former bringing physicality and being very comfortable carrying the ball forward, with Nolan looking like a genuine goalscoring threat. Vaz Te also looks a real danger with his pace and dribbling ability (who can go down the line or cut in), and they have the ability to mix it up by playing Benayoun, who can act as a playmaker and allow for more intricate build up play.
Of course they may very will ship goals at the other end, but a promoted team’s goalscoring proficiency is usually what decides whether they stay up or not.
If Liverpool were looking to replicate the style of Barcelona, they should have looked at the failed experiment of Roma – develop your own style! Look at sides like Zenit, Borussia ‘Gladbach and even Germany and you will see that the best method of playing attractive football is to play it on fluid counter, but Carroll still, unfortunately, fit in with this system – Arsenal showed though that you need to have a plan B and unfortunately Liverpool have neither the players or the depth to have a second option without Carroll.
The story of the game was the fact that Fulham where playing the day after losing their 2 best players . Without Dembele in the middle their midfield was a shambles. They had been working on a system that had been in place for over a year. Spurs removing Dembele from that system meant all of that work was for not. They came out sluggish and confused. I have no idea why Jol tried playing Richardson as part of a midfield three in his first game without ever having trained with the team. He was woeful. Fulham looked better in the second half when they reverted to the 4-2-3-1, 4-4-1-1 with Kacalicnic on the left that they were comfortable in.
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