West Ham boss David Moyes has openly admitted that playing with five at the back was a big mistake against Aston Villa yesterday.
The Hammers manager mixed things up at half-time and reverted to a back four, bringing on Said Benrahma in place of Emerson Palmieri.
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West Ham were incredibly poor during the first 45 minutes but looked like a different team in the second-half.
The three points was all that mattered in the end yesterday. It would have been nice for the players to put in a top-class performance as well, but when you’re looking for your first points of the season, you take a win anyway it comes.
Moyes clearly wasn’t happy with his players during the opening period against Aston Villa…
David Moyes admits he made a big mistake against Aston Villa
The Scot opted to start new signing Emerson Palmieri as a left wing-back for the Hammers against Villa, with Aaron Cresswell slotting in as a left-sided centre-back.
And Moyes admitted that in hindsight, that was the wrong decision, as quoted by Football.London:
“I made that decision because I felt that it might have given us a chance of playing in a way in which we might have caused Villa problems, it was the exact opposite I think. Villa thrived in it. The good thing about it is we were incredibly resilient in the first half and we didn’t concede and in truth, there wasn’t many chances for both sides. I don’t think there was lots and lots of big chances in the game, so it was good that we gave ourselves a chance at 0-0 and we didn’t buckle in the first half.”
That’s a fair assessment from Moyes and fair play to him for admitting that he got it wrong.
It is concerning that he set up that way in the first place though. A back five is the way to go when we play the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool in order to close off the passing lanes.
Against the likes of Aston Villa, the West Ham players should be imposing their qualities onto the opposition.
And hopefully Moyes has learned that from yesterday’s performance at Villa Park.
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