poitier

8 minutes ago, lexicon said:

What on earth are you dribbling about? 

He would have made a crab look progressive. He was sideways and very often backwards, which is why we end up with Mings trying to play it forward so often. Considering that West Ham were standing off him he should have been able to move the ball forward a lot more. He picked up a bit in the last 20-30 min.

He didn’t play a forward pass for the first hour. Needs to contribute more.

I thought he did well defensively for the most part, handled Lukaku well one on one.

Apart from the back pass he was excellent tonight.

He really is the epitome of a luxury player, just trundles about then pulls out a bit of magic every now and then. If he had a rocket up his backside he could be a great player.

Obviously the two goals was great, but I was perhaps more impressed to see the improvement in his hold up play tonight, very good all round after taking a while to get into the game.

I'm not expecting Wes to make any meaningful contribution for us at any point in the future. If he does, great.

Thought he came more into it as the game went on, poor game overall but suggests that it probably isn't a fitness issue.

I agree with that. It goes against the narrative of what a talented footballer he is, but his forward passing has been pretty poor. 

2 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

Or we could play to his strengths....

Indeed, but that isn't always going to be possible. As a CF you are going to have to hold your own when the ball is played up, even if you don't win it don't make it easy.

14 minutes ago, Genie said:

Lucky not to have been sent off. I understand why he did but picking up a player by his shirt was very silly when already booked.

Especially when the opportunity was there to just stamp on his head, again accidentally.

Last couple of games he has seemed to not compete very well for high balls played up to him. It might not be his forte, but he needs to make a better fist of competing for those balls, he has let defenders win it too easily.

He done a dribble and it was bosting.

Service into him was awful tonight. Our team play was so bad that we often ended up with Hause trying to slide a poor pass into him with two defenders on him and one in front of him - oh look, another pass that Davis hasn't been able to hold up!

Yeah, a couple of good moments in the first half, don't know if the lack of end product from those knocked his confidence a bit. He didn't take responsibility in the second half though, happy to receive the ball and just play it back to the defence - not alone in that regard, but disappointing nonetheless.

I hadn't seen him before he came here. Heard was meant to bring some pace to our attack, but he has barely got above a canter in his couple of appearances so far. He seems like an intelligent passer, but certainly not what I was expecting. Early days though.

I thought he was fairly ineffective today, lost a lot of 50/50s and didn’t break up play or pick up loose balls like he has done so well since the restart. Just an off day hopefully.

He did a lot of good defensive work when we were under the cosh a bit, I can understand why Traore didn’t come on earlier.

Finished with aplomb!

I thought he was our most creative player today, looked to be getting back to his old self.

I like Fred, think he can be a bit of a loose cannon defensively, but has potential.

He was excellent for the first hour. It is incredible how much his defensive game has improved, still needs to improve the forward passing though.