West Ham: Jamie Carragher slams ‘shocking’ performance against Brentford as Gary O’Neil says they ‘look lost’ | Football news

Jamie Carragher believes West Ham are “shocking” and are one of the slowest teams in the Premier League and at risk of relegation while former Bournemouth and Wolves boss Gary O’Neil said they look “lost”.

West Ham’s relegation concerns deepened with their fifth consecutive home defeat as Brentford earned a deserved 2-0 victory over Monday Night Football.

Nuno Espirito Santo is winless in his first three matches in charge of his new team, second from bottom in the Premier League and Aerial sports Carragher believes the club’s poor performances are partly down to their ‘roll back’ approach to transfers.

“Shocking and it’s been shocking for a while,” Carragher said of West Ham’s performance against Brentford. “It’s been a very long time since they won that European trophy under David Moyes.

“Sometimes we question supporters when they oppose the club or an owner. Most of the time it is almost a last resort and very rarely supporters of their own football club are wrong, they know exactly what is happening in that football club and it is not up to the managers.

“West Ham’s ownership now is completely different to what we see at the club who have just absolutely beaten them on their own turf. It’s almost like a step backwards in terms of how they do transfers. It just doesn’t seem like a modern way of doing things and I think that’s where that frustration comes from.

“They look at other clubs who aren’t a patch on West Ham and that’s no disrespect to Brentford and maybe Brighton who we see as modern, forward-thinking clubs.

“West Ham are a much bigger club than those two clubs, but the way they are run at the moment means they can actually compete with them on the pitch.”

Carragher highlighted West Ham’s lack of pace and energy as a major concern.

“I can’t think of a less athletic team I’ve seen in a long, long time in the Premier League,” he said. “They are one of the slowest teams I have seen in the Premier League.

“The first goal felt like a throwback to 40 or 50 years ago. It felt like everyone had all the time in the world and there was space. It was absolutely horrible from a West Ham point of view.

“I was scared for them at the start of the season because I thought the promoted teams would be more competitive. West Ham, with this squad of players, whoever the manager was, was always going to have a problem because I don’t think they could cope physically.

“It wasn’t just a superb footballing performance from Brentford, they absolutely intimidated them. West Ham had to go three at the back. They’re getting beaten at home and you bring defenders in because you can’t cope with Brentford. You don’t play Man City, you don’t play Arsenal, it was Brentford and they couldn’t cope.”

“Nuno has a hell of a job to do”

O’Neil is concerned about whether West Ham, second from bottom with four points, will be able to stay in the Premier League. There is currently a three-point gap to 17th-placed Burnley and only winless Wolves sit below the Hammers.

“I was confident that West Ham would do well throughout the season. Having seen that, I have real concerns about them now,” he said.

“They look lost from a tactical point of view, of course Nuno has only been there for five minutes and he needs time, but they look lost, they look lacking in confidence, they don’t look together.

“I think Brentford will finish somewhere in the bottom six or seven of the league and they completely tore West Ham apart on their home pitch tonight.

“It’s going to require a seismic shift in this performance. Nuno has a hell of a job to make the team competitive in time to go to Elland Road in four days, because it’s an unforgiving stadium. They’re going to need a big improvement on that to have a chance.”

Nuno: We have a problem at home

Nuno highlighted how the atmosphere at the London Stadium is not helping his team

“I think we’re all worried. You can feel it in our own fans. You can see they’re worried. And then that worry turns into silence. That silence becomes anxiety. And we have a problem.

“It’s understandable. Since my arrival, I’ve been clearly aware that it’s up to us to change that. Our fans need to see something they like, something they like, so they can support us and give us energy – as we feel at the start of the match.

“Our fans were behind the team because the team was playing well. Then the dynamic changed, that’s what we have.

“We try to ignore it. We try to make them feel like they [the players] we have to be comfortable so that they can express themselves well, but we cannot hide. It’s there to see.

“It’s there to see the situations we have, the passes don’t click, it concerns many aspects and mentally it’s one of the aspects we have to change.”

Analysis: West Ham are relegation fodder

Sky Sports’ Lewis Jones at the London Stadium:

Losing 5-1 against Chelsea was bad. But it was worse.

West Ham expected their worrying start to the season to be resolved by a change of head coach. Yet it’s a deeper problem than the one that’s driving them out of the shelter.

Years of lazy and poor recruitment decisions will now bite this football club hard. The fans are fed up with all this. The squad of players we see are not built for the rigors of Premier League football.

Once again this West Ham team were bullied in duels and lacked the ability to compete in key areas of the pitch. At one point, Tomas Soucek was playing alone in central midfield after a tactical reshuffle and the results weren’t pretty.

While newly promoted teams are swinging hard and winning points, poor Premier League teams are going to be punished this season with a real threat of relegation. This is what West Ham are facing. They are really ruined.