West Ham finished their preseason campaign in Northern France with a 0-0 draw against RC Lens today – a dull affair with little action aside from two moments late in the game where both sides struck the woodwork.
Franck Haise’s side have been great to watch over the last few years with a compact back three providing the platform for a number of young players to shine. Loïc Badé and Cheick Doucouré were both brilliant for Haise before earning big money moves to Rennes and Crystal Palace, and young striker Arnaud Kalimuendo excelled whilst on loan from PSG. There have been occasional mutterings that West Ham might actually hold an interest in pursuing a transfer for Kalimuendo who scored 12 goals last season in his second consecutive loan with Lens.
It’s not just the younger crop that have performed well since Lens’ promotion in 2020 though. The Blood and Gold, an incredible nickname, have massively overachieved in Ligue 1 with back-to-back seventh-place finishes and older heads like Seko Fofana, Jonathan Clauss and Gaël Kakuta have been crucial to this success. Fofana in particular has been great fun to watch, performing so well that Get French Football News picked the Ivorian as their 2021 Player of the Year. In a league containing talents like Kylian Mbappé and Neymar, this is no small feat.
It was a tough test then to round-off a preseason campaign which West Ham have staggered through. Consecutive wins against Servette and Ipswich Town back at the start of this month were followed by lacklustre performances against Luton Town and Rangers. Today’s match was no different to those last couple. West Ham were sluggish and lacked any kind of impetus as the game drifted through its hour-and-a-half runtime to its painfully obvious conclusion.
That’s preseason for you! Often underwhelming to the extent that it can have a similar effect to a Nytol after a Sunday roast; these fitness-building sessions offer little insight into players’ levels before the real stuff kicks off but we can take some insight from the tactics used…
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