West Ham manager should not be criticised for experimenting at this stages of the season.
West Ham United boss Slaven Bilic has come in for criticism from supporters after his team selection at the weekend.
The Hammers drew 0-0 with West Brom with summer signing Javier Hernandez playing wide as part of a front three.
Hernandez is a renowned goal poacher, as he demonstrated earlier in the season with a brace against Southampton.
Bilic made the choice because he wanted to select Andy Carroll as the main centre-forward.
While playing wide is not ideal use of Hernandez, he has greater capability to do so than the more immobile Andy Carroll.
Hernandez played for 76 minutes before being substituted for Andre Ayew.
It wasn’t pretty. The Mexican touched the ball only 29 times, and did not manage to have a shot at goal. He made one key pass, but this clearly was not the right way to get the best out of him.
So it is easy to lambast Bilic for not knowing this already, but while he is in the results business, it is his job to experiment with the players bought for him.
He will have had his theories about how Hernandez would play out wide with Carroll, but he will have needed to see it in action.
The pair might even have impressed in that role in training – so he will have needed to see it for real in the Premier League to make a deeper assessment.
Now clearly it did not work, and it is not an experiment Bilic should rush to repeat.
He needs to find a way to get Hernandez and Carroll playing together, but using the Mexico international out wide is not it.
Having done so once is acceptable, but the real problem will be if Bilic goes back to the same team selection for a second try.
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