Having missed last week’s match between West Ham and Manchester City due to prior commitments, I arrived home to catch a glimpse of the final scores. Having seen that West Ham had lost 3-1, my initial feelings of disappointment were quickly overcome by the thought that; ‘well, West Ham can’t be expected to win games like that can they’. I was happy with that thought until later in the evening I realised that West Ham’s closest rivals at the bottom, Wolves, had dispatched of Man City only a few weeks prior. This had me thinking; can West Ham, or any other teams at the bottom afford to ‘write off’ games against the bigger teams?
The aforementioned Wolves of course rather infamously did precisely that last season when they travelled to a midweek game at Old Trafford. Making 10 changes, Mick McCarthy essentially accepted defeat before a player had even stepped out on to the pitch. However, on the Saturday after, having lost 3-0 with the depleted team at Manchester United, Wolves went on to beat Burnley 2-0, and eventually stayed up, whereas their opponents that day faired a little differently.
So would it be prudent for Avram Grant to apply a tactic like that at West Ham? Perhaps with a little more subtlety than Mick McCarthy did, as Wolves were fined £25,000 for his indiscretions, although that was probably offset slightly by the estimated £30m for staying in the division. For example, if West Ham fielded a weakened side against Manchester City, would the result against Blackburn this Saturday have been different? There is no definitive answer except, if it pays off you end up looking smug like Mick McCarthy, and if it doesn’t you look like an idiot.
I personally believe that every game is there to be won, no matter who you are playing against, and that Wolves and Mick McCarthy got very lucky with a tactic that could have gone badly wrong. What also counts is the way the team perform as well as the result, and by chopping and changing a side, you don’t give the regular first team players the chance to gel. After all you can lose and play well, although that is never a consolation if you are sitting in the bottom three.
By deferring potential points to the next game, you will eventually run out of games, as West Ham are currently doing. Every game must be seen as a potential three points, otherwise, West Ham will very quickly find themselves planning a promotion.
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