Former England strikers Alan Shearer and Ian Wright have told West Ham United manager David Moyes that he must focus on working out his best attacking line-up during the international break.
After seven games of the Premier League season, the Hammers sit 18th in the top-flight standings and have scored just three goals in the league campaign, despite bagging 12 goals in four matches in the Europa Conference League.
Moyes’ side are the joint-lowest scorers in the division so far this season with just three goals alongside Wolverhampton Wanderers. However, only two of those have been from open play and they have scored a lower amount of goals than any of the other sides in the league from open play.
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Former England, Arsenal, and West Ham striker Wright believes that Moyes needs to work on getting more fluidity out of his attacking players in order to get the Hammers back to their best after losing 1-0 to Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday.
“They’ve only got two goals [from open play],” Wright said on Match of the Day 2. “That’s what they need, they need some fluidity up front because you look at it today and he started with Michail Antonio, [Maxwel] Cornet came on, looked pretty dangerous, but at the same time, they don’t seem to have that fluidity.
“David Moyes said there was a couple of opportunities where they thought they could have done better but it’s just not quite working out for them. When you look at what they had, it was like 36 points from 34 Premier League games, that’s just not good form for West Ham, so they need to sort that out sooner rather than later.”
West Ham have picked up just four points from a possible 21 in the Premier League this term from their seven matches. Of those seven games, Moyes has tried six different attacking combinations, with their only win being a 1-0 victory against Aston Villa last month.
Former England captain and Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer feels that Moyes must work out the best combination between his attacking options of Jarrod Bowen, Lucas Paqueta, Manuel Lanzini, Said Benrahma, Maxwel Cornet, Pablo Fornals, Michail Antonio, and Gianluca Scamacca, earmarking the international break as the perfect opportunity to do so.
“He’s got to find that right combination, that’s what he’s searching for, that’s what he’s looking for because there isn’t one that has actually worked yet,” explained Shearer.
“Once he finds that combination, we know what he will be doing in the international week on their days off, they’ll be in and they’ll be trying to find the correct formation. Once he finds that, he’s going to have to stick to it.”
In attack, West Ham have done well in their Europa Conference League matches, scoring three goals in each of their two legs in their play-off qualifying round win over Viborg as well as three goals in their Group B wins over FCSB and Silkeborg.
Wright thinks that the priority should be to focus on form in the Premier League and a 12-day break comes at the perfect time for the Irons to rediscover the best league form.
“We’re talking about the Premier League and of course, you want people to acclimatise but at the same time, they need to do it quickly,” added Wright. “Whatever they are doing, if you are going to use the Europa [Conference] League to get going in the Premier League, which I think is their bread and butter, which I think they should be doing, they need to do that quickly.
“The international break is perfect for West Ham at the moment, they need that.”
After the international break concludes, West Ham are back in action on Saturday, October 1 against Wolverhampton Wanderers at the London Stadium in the Premier League, with Wolves currently sat 17th in the table.
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