How did West Ham get on in the US and Austria?

Some love it yet some hate it. Yes, i’m talking about pre-season. It’s loved because it’s the return of football after a long summer off and we finally get to see the return of our beloved team. We get to see our new signings in action for the first time after weeks of speculation. But for some it’s simply watching a game that is purely there to get the players’ fitness up. It’s usually against lesser sides and are uncompetitive games and as we saw yesterday, can seriously injure some of our players before the season starts. So how did we get on this pre-season?

This year’s pre-season started off with two games in the US against both Seattle Sounders and Carolina RailHawks who have already played 19 and 4 league games respectively. It was never going to be an easy first game for us and though it was not the result many were hoping for, we managed to lose 3-0.

Then came the second game against Carolina RailHawks and we did manage to produce a better display and goals from Winston Reid and Andy Carroll managed to secure us a 2-2 draw. Both games were more notable for Slaven Bilic giving us the chance to see the likes of Harvard Nordtveit, Antonio Martinez, Domingos Quina and Sofiane Feghouli in action for the first time.

We then travelled to Austria and only managed to win one game out of three, ending our tours of both the US and Austria with five games played, only one win and ten goals conceded. It’s fair to say that we’ve had better summers. But we can’t ignore that there were positives to come out of the Austria tour. We got the chance to see Gokhan Tore play in a West Ham shirt for the first time and his quality was there for all to see. Our new signing Ashley Fletcher also impressed, scoring two goals in three games.

Now fans were angered at the results in these games and our poor performances which is expected. I mean, drawing against a team that’s in the second tier of American football? Unacceptable, right? But you have to take this in its context and understand what pre-season is about. The aim is to get the players ready for the start of the season, to ensure that they are fit enough. We want to integrate the new players and give youth a chance as shown through Bilic using 21 different players in the first game. It’s a chance to try out new tactics and formations in order to find out what works and what doesn’t thus it’s only natural to underperform.

Last season we only managed to win two games out of six and ended up challenging for Champions League football. The season we finished 20th in the Premier League we won six out of our seven games. Pre-season results were not the best for 85/86 and we managed to finish 3rd!

So what can we take out of this? Let’s not worry, if history proves to be right once again then we have absolutely nothing to worry about this season.

Next game - NK Domzale v. West Ham United (28th July, 7.45pm).