Graham Potter seeking West Ham attacking improvements after toothless display | OneFootball

Lack of a clinical edge hurting Hammers

Graham Potter said he felt for his West Ham players after Monday’s 1-0 home defeat to Newcastle, explaining that while they had not done enough to win, they had deserved something from the game.

They might have got it, too, if patterns of play in the final third had been cleaner and more polished in those dying embers of the match.

Instead, Bruno Guimaraes’s volley midway through the second half remained the only moment of quality and clarity, and consigned the Hammers to a 13th Premier League defeat of the season.

Only four teams in the Premier League have scored fewer goals than West Ham this season, and a clinical edge in front of goal remains more dream than reality for them.

Jarrod Bowen scored a shock winner at Arsenal a fortnight ago but is enduring a stodgy season by his lofty, England-international standards, all things considered. He has eight goals in all competitions this term; last season he tallied 20.

Tomas Soucek blazed a glorious chance over the bar that proved costly against Newcastle

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Mohammed Kudus, meanwhile, has three - some way off the 14 he registered last term. The Ghanaian can turn on a sixpence, and does, and can dribble past opposition players as though they aren’t even there, and does, yet his ability to affect big games by conjuring up big moments has lessened. Potter, just as Julen Lopetegui did, needs shrewder decision-making and crisper end product from the mercurial attacker.

At times, Bowen and Kudus got in each other’s way against Newcastle, demonstrating a strike partnership very much in its infancy and out of sync.

The emotional appearance of Michail Antonio on the pitch before the match and the news, last week, that Niclas Fullkrug has been taking part in training gives a hopeful nod to a time when West Ham might finally possess the natural finishing required to turn iffy performances into ugly wins.

That said, Evan Ferguson is ready and waiting and yet still remains an option from the bench, with a first start under Potter - who he worked with at Brighton - still eluding him his loan move from Brighton.

Tomas Soucek can be trusted to chip in with a handful of goals each season, yet even he was guilty of misfiring on Monday. How different proceedings might have been if he had not blazed over the bar with the glorious chance that fell his way not 50 seconds in.

“We had some good opportunities and didn’t take them,” Max Kilman lamented after a flat defeat at a flat London Stadium.

“We’ve been getting into the final third much more. We’re looking much more confident on the ball. We’ve just been unfortunate in front of goal.”

Potter was not so sure that fortune had played too pivotal a role. “We can improve our attacking play, for sure,” he admitted.

“We struggled to impose ourselves on the game for moments. The game ebbed and flowed a bit. We had our moments, they had theirs.

“We want to do more, ourselves, with the ball and attack better. You need to do that at home.”

Potter acknowledges the task he has inherited. At both ends of the pitch, there is plenty of work to be done in the weeks and months ahead.

“I apologise if things aren’t happening as quickly as we want them to be, but the players are giving everything.”