West Ham: No quick fix for Graham Potter as Hammers discover urgent transfer need | OneFootball

Graham Potter’s first game as West Ham manager ends in defeat but there were some positives to take

Graham Potter’s curtain-raiser was precisely what West Ham hope to look back on and say of this season as a whole: a game of two halves.

Life after the unpopular and uninspiring Julen Lopetegui began so promisingly, so ferociously, when Lucas Paqueta arrowed inches wide of the post after 40 seconds and then passed the opening goal into the net after nine minutes.

That early bravery abated, though, as Aston Villa flexed their European muscle against these once-Europa Conference League winners with a greatly improved second half in which West Ham looked to be hanging hopefully on.

That is, of course, until Amadou Onana and Morgan Rogers scored inside five minutes of each other to dump West Ham out of the FA Cup.

If Potter’s front-four selection was unsurprising in that it matched that which Lopetegui selected at the Etihad last Saturday, it was certainly unexpected to see the way he set them up. Usually on the left, Crysencio Summerville was deployed on the right, where he combined with the more central Mohammed Kudus. Paqueta, who looked a new man, drifted infield as the nominal left winger.

That use of the old switcheroo dumbfounded Villa, who finally wrestled a foothold in the game after 15 minutes following a start to the game that was such a purple patch for West Ham that no one could earnestly have claimed they did not merit the ninth-minute lead Paqueta so nonchalantly gave them.

Potter will have purred adoringly from the sidelines at the way the ball was worked up the pitch, starting with Lukasz Fabianski in goal, then Max Kilman’s masterful ball over the top, and involving all of the front four, culminating in Summerville squaring and Paqueta rolling home. Potter clenched his fist and punched the air. Some start.

West Ham fans have learned this season never to get ahead of themselves, though, and it took some of the sting out after that terrific early goal when Niclas Fullkrug, whose header had made it possible, went down off the ball and signalled to be taken off before he’d even finished tumbling to the turf.

It looked a severe hamstring injury for a player who has already seen specialists in two countries this season for an Achilles tendon injury that so badly disrupted his start to life in East London. When will Potter get him back now? If they were in the market for a striker before, given Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio’s injuries, they’ll definitely look to sign one now.

Summerville coming off at the break after pulling up and then carrying on in the first half may see him out for a spell too. Potter could certainly do without that.

West Ham sat in a 5-3-2 out of possession, and Potter pushed the tireless Aaron Wan-Bissaka into the front-line once Vladimir Coufal replaced Summerville at the interval.

Effort levels, it must be said, never dropped. Ollie Scarles, the 19-year-old academy product starting in domestic competition for the very time, had his name sung by the West Ham faithful and defended diligently.

Ollie Scarles impressed against Aston Villa.

AFP via Getty Images

Edson Alvarez and Tomas Soucek buzzed around. But the balance of this cup tie had now fully turned, and Potter was powerless to prevent the hosts feeding off the expectant crowd at Villa Park and consigning him to defeat in his first game in charge.

Villa had 65 percent of possession but zero shots in the first half. In the second? The same control of the ball with a hell of a lot more punch. West Ham couldn’t keep hold of the ball, and they were denied extra-time by two late misses from Danny Ings. Might Fullkrug have done better with both, had the big German still been on? Them’s the breaks.

No silverware for the Hammers this season, then. Time now for Potter to return to Premier League matters and get a stagnant club moving. No magically quick fix.