West Ham United could already be feeling the effects of not bringing in any new faces in January, as Dion Dublin took note of a below par warm-up session.
Dublin, a former Aston Villa and Coventry City player, noticed West Ham’s warm up against Vanarama National League North side Kidderminster Harriers was not up to the usual standards of a David Moyes team.
Speaking on the BBC as quoted by Hammers News, Dublin said: “The don’t seem to have the energy.
“I don’t like the look of their warm-up. They looked a bit leggy, looked a bit sloppy.”
Such a detail will be likely to not go down too well with Moyes in the future.
Luckily, after going 1-0 down early on to the sixth division outfit courtesy of an Alex Penny goal, half-time substitute Declan Rice added some much needed impetus to the game and subsequently scored a last minute equaliser to bring the game to extra-time and break Kidderminster hearts.
Once again in extra-time it was an injury time winner which saw West Ham progress into the next round, this time from Jarrod Bowen.
West Ham will need to fix this issue if they want to seriously progress deeper into both the FA Cup and Europa League.
With the deepest respect for Kidderminster, who gave a strong account of themselves against a Premier League top four challenger, against better opposition West Ham would have very likely come unstuck and been eliminated from the cup today.
One way to ease the match load burden on the already thin West Ham squad would have been to recruit some new faces in January, but having failed to do so leaves the team clutching desperately to what they already have.