Formed by Hammers supporters Jack Elderton and Callum Goodall to offer their fellow fans in-depth but accessible analysis of their team and its players, Analytics United use performance analysis and data to examine how a fascinating clash of two teams who play on the counter-attack in very different ways could play out when West Ham United host AFC Bournemouth on Thursday evening...
Looking across the last ten Premier League games, West Ham rank third with 21 points from a possible 30 and Bournemouth sit fifth on 19. Andoni Iraola might have had a rocky start on the south coast, and 76% of their 25 points have come in those last ten games, but things have finally started to click for the Spaniard and his team are beginning to look like one of the more formidable opponents from the middle of the pack this season.
Clearly, Dominic Solanke has been crucial to this upturn in form and will continue to be central to most of what Bournemouth do well this season. The ex-Liverpool and Chelsea striker has 12 goals already and has displayed an impressive range of finishes with goals off both feet and a couple of ridiculously impressive headers to boot. Iraola’s team have provided excellent service too – Solanke has the sixth lowest average shot distance of Premier League strikers (with more than 500 minutes played).
The Cherries’ routes to chance generation are worth discussing here because, unlike some other teams from the middle-to-lower end of the division who might primarily unsettle defences through direct in-possession play and set-pieces, Iraola’s team are more focused on generating positive counter-attacking situations through their pressing approach.
Whilst this is somewhat similar to West Ham, in that both sides are interested in using their out of possession principles to incite the kind of attacking opportunities from which their players can profit, comparing the two sides’ average PPDA figures this season draws out just how differently Iraola and Moyes go about doing this. Bournemouth rank in the top half (8th) for most intense pressure this season with 9.9 PPDA where West Ham sit rock bottom on 17.33 – allowing an average of 1.56 more opposition passes per defensive intervention more than any other team in the league. Compact defensive security before surging forward at great speed is a barebones deconstruction of the West Ham we’ve seen this season, where highly engaged aggressive pressure against opposition build-up to generate dangerous final-third attacking turnovers is a similar summarisation of Iraola’s Bournemouth.
This is a style we’ve seen other non-top-six managers attempt: Marcelo Bielsa (who Iraola played under, and no doubt took great inspiration from, at Athletic Bilbao) and Ralph Hassenhüttl both had success initially before their team’s crashed and burned, in large part due to the defensive vulnerability baked into their highly aggressive out of possession ideals. If there’s one major distinguishing factor between Iraola and these managers, it’s that the Spaniard manages risk differently by asking his team to press in numbers without compromising total defensive security.
Where Bielsa might’ve employed a complete man-to-man defensive structure, Iraola opts for more of a hybrid approach where his forward unit jumps aggressively to close down half of the pitch and make it difficult for teams to progress through build-up whilst the defensive unit simultaneously maintains a semblance of zonal control. The defenders are expected to read the play and step out to support the press where necessary but the team, as a whole, is also willing to cede space and race back to defend the box in numbers should the initial press fail – rather than committing fully and falling on their sword against higher quality opposition.
Iraola also deconstructs the idea that all risk-taking managers can be idealistically committed to a narrow vision of football as his side clearly do possess some of those typically strong elements boasted by teams towards the bottom end of the division that we mentioned earlier. Under his management, Bournemouth are more than happy to get the ball forward quickly and pick up the pieces to launch attacks from the final third. So far this season, the Cherries have played the fifth-most long balls per 90 at 40.72 and move up to fourth when looking at the percentage of total passes going long (12.84% – comfortably above the league average of 9.42%).
This is what makes them such an interesting case as the combination of direct aggressive play both in and out of possession makes them one of the more relentless teams in the division.
As with any team willing to jump into a higher pressing shape, there are opportunities to play direct balls in behind that exploit the space left behind Bournemouth’s defensive line. This was on display when Iraola’s side fell to a 3-1 defeat against Spurs on New Year’s Eve as both Spurs’ second and third goals came from passes that exploited the Cherries’ defensive line height. The first on that day was a perfect example of another issue that has cropped up a few times this season around Neto’s distribution – the Brazilian goalkeeper has misjudged passes out from the back on several occasions and cost his team a hard-earned point against Wolves back in October when his quick goal kick left Philip Billing under pressure and ultimately led to a late Saša Kalajdžić winner.
Lastly, when Bournemouth do spring forward to force errors in build-up, they often cede space on the far side of the pitch as they close in around the ball and this can open opportunities for switches to be particularly impactful. As such, it’s a shame that Nayef Aguerd will be unavailable for this one, the Moroccan having been away on international duty at the 2023 AFCON, but Konstantinos Mavropanos will hope to add the same kind of distributing ability in his absence.
This will be a fascinating game. A clash of ideas around how to generate upsides without the ball in a meeting between two of the division’s form sides. Hopefully, a West Ham side well-placed to take advantage of some of those opposition weaknesses can come out on top.
