West Ham Fan View: Are there any reasons to be optimistic?

With two wins from seven games, West Ham have repeated last season’s poor start despite strengthening with big players in the summer. So what areas do we need to improve? Is there any reason to be optimistic for the upcoming games?

IMPROVE – Consistency in team selection and formation

During Slaven Bilic’s first season, we knew what the first team would be going into games. Now, we are guessing every single week. And it is not because of the quality of competition for places. It was clear that there was no settled team or formation last season and while we hoped for a change, it has been the same case this season.

READ MORE: A good transfer window turns sour for West Ham United

Bilic started the season using a 4-2-3-1 though changed to a 3-4-3 in an attempt to address the numerous goals that we were conceding. This did improve our team but we were still putting in poor performances and Bilic then changed to a 4-4-2 in our previous game to accommodate Javier Hernandez and Andy Carroll. So will we see him settle on this for our next few games? And when it comes to selecting players, we see the same inconsistency. Does Pedro Obiang make it in to midfield? What about Andrew Ayew? Will Andy Carroll or Javier Hernandez play as the main striker?

IMPROVE – Impact from wide areas

With Carroll fit and playing, our impact from our wide players has to be far greater than it has been this season. We signed Marko Arnautovic as our record signing to play on the left wing though he has been nothing short of disappointing so far. He did have a good game for Austria against Serbia, scoring once, and we need him to replicate this for West Ham. We haven’t seen a player dominate from the left side since Dimitri Payet left and we need to score goals from all areas of the pitch.

READ MORE: What needs to change at West Ham United from last season?

Although Michail Antonio has not had a single goal or assist this season, he has put in good performances on the right and has been crucial to our attack performing well. He scored 9 goals and assisted 3 times last season but can he repeat that this season?

OPTIMISM – Manuel Lanzini’s return

Manuel Lanzini has not started a single game for us this season, only coming off the bench twice, playing a total of 74 minutes. But it looks like he is finally back and he should start our next game against Burnley.

He is the only player in our team that can unlock defences and his risk-taking and quality in the final third is something that we have lacked this season. He has improved significantly since Payet left the club but he now has to be consistent over a whole season. From what we saw in his cameo against Swansea, he is certainly ready to do that.