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PL: West Ham a Ratings & Reactions


limpid

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1st half we pass it around, keep the ball better. this equals chances created and green having to make good saves. we are on top and west ham cant get the ball.

2nd half we revert to long ball. we create hardly anything, give the ball away all the time and west ham dominate.

ash's goal was a brilliant shot/cross, but it came from warnock playing a nice incisive through ball into gabbys feet, gabby laying it off nicely along the floor and then ash cutting in and letting rip. the one time we tried to construct something decent along the floor in the 2nd half and we score. had warnock lumped it long to gabby it would have come straight back.

it was the same for the goal against everton. that came about from some nice build up play, warnock got in behind the defence and had a chance to get a dangerous ball in which eventually came to carew.

so the question is why cant we do this regulaly?

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What a fecking aweful day !!!

Work was crap until 7pm - then I thought, at least I can listen to the match and at 7.20pm some inconsiderate twonk goes and hangs himself in the middle of nowhere.

I then spend the next two hours standing in the pouring rain (already having a stinking cold) watching what looked like a scene from a wild west movie. This is outside mobile range so I can't get the flipping scores (and I thought it was crass to ask the deceased family could I put teletext on !) and so I just back into mobile range, to ring the missus at just the point they score the bleeding winner - utterly fecking aweful day ! = anyone beat that ?

Anyhow - never heard it so cant give reaction , only the following:-

1. What the hell was Habib Beye doing anywhere near East London ? - the guy is a liability and we have a right back, who could quite conceivably go to the world cup !. Makes no sense (however, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that since Young came out in the summer moaning about being played out of position - he hasn't started a single game - wonder where we've heard that before....)

2. Heskey - I fecking give up. Sorry but if Martin O'Neill cannot see it - he is more incompetent than even I think !

I can't even get angry anymore. I believe MON has had it lucky for three years - he inherited some quality players, the likes of Mellberg, Barry, Laursen, Bouma, Gabby. One by one they have left, and each time they have been replaced by players of lesser quality. We are now seeing the consequences.

We won't get relegated, but we have as much chance of getting top 4 as the Liberal Party gaining power next year. A finish between 8th and 12th beckons and that is nowhere near good enough.

Bolton - lets face it, if we can't beat Bolton at home - we are in the shit ! - so yes, I do expect us to win on Saturday, but that doesn't detract from the crap we have been served up over the last month.

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I just wish O'Neill would take a chance on some of the younger lads, Delph, Albrighton, Delfouneso etc. instead of persisting with mediocre (at best) crap like Heskey and Sidwell

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gabby cant be relied upon to go to the corner shop and buy a tin of beans let alone carry the responsibility of being our main goal threat.

Beautifully put, off topic as it might be perhaps we should cheer ourselves up by guessing what he might bring back......if he didn't get lost on the way back of course.

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he inherited some quality players, the likes of Mellberg, Barry, Laursen, Bouma, Gabby. One by one they have left, and each time they have been replaced by players of lesser quality. We are now seeing the consequences.

Are you suggesting that the squad he inherited was better than the one we have now?

He inherited a handful of decent players, but they were far outnumbered by dross. That's why we were heading for near certain relegation.

(BTW last time I checked Bouma and Gabby were still at the club. And Laursen didn't leave, he was forced to retire.)

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gabby cant be relied upon to go to the corner shop and buy a tin of beans let alone carry the responsibility of being our main goal threat.

Beautifully put, off topic as it might be perhaps we should cheer ourselves up by guessing what he might bring back......if he didn't get lost on the way back of course.

A tub of durex maybe, with a few visits to various places on the way back...

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Albrighton is nowhere near as good as people seem to think he is.

His chance will come, tonight probably wasn't the right time to throw him into a Premier League game.

I agree with this. Not the time to put him in. I'd have had NRC and Delph in the side.

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Albrighton is nowhere near as good as people seem to think he is.

His chance will come, tonight probably wasn't the right time to throw him into a Premier League game.

Sorry but I disagree. Instead we try and shoe-horn Heskey into the team. Albrighton has been nothing short of a match-winner in every first team match I've seen him in. He nearly won the Peace Cup on his own. He has genuine quality and he seems to have the head to handle first team opportunities - and that's an intangible quality you can only gauge once he's playing in the first team. With Milner out and us playing 2nd from bottom this was exactly the right stage for him. He has sat on the bench long enough chomping at the bit.

It's clear now that O'Neill is absolutely petrified to make changes to his teams to the extent that any enforced changes are made using trusted senior players in unfamiliar positions. It is infuriating and suggests he might not have what it takes to truly to get to the top. The fact he holds pathetic grudges too reflects badly on him. I'm really angry with tonight's result main because it was avoidable if we'd picked a proper team with balance and personnel in their rightful positions rather than patched it together unnecessarily.

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he inherited some quality players, the likes of Mellberg, Barry, Laursen, Bouma, Gabby. One by one they have left, and each time they have been replaced by players of lesser quality. We are now seeing the consequences.

Are you suggesting that the squad he inherited was better than the one we have now?

He inherited a handful of decent players, but they were far outnumbered by dross. That's why we were heading for near certain relegation.

(BTW last time I checked Bouma and Gabby were still at the club. And Laursen didn't leave, he was forced to retire.)

No, I'm saying some things dont change.

3 years ago we had 6 quality players - ish. Unfortunately they were surrounded by absolute dross like Samuel , McCann and all which dragged us down.

3 years on and we have about 3 quality players, 4 mediocre players and four shit players dragging us down.

The difference is - or should I say - the 120 million reasons , mean we shouldn't be still in that position.

Put it this way, give Graham Taylor, Ron Atkinson, John Gregory , Brian Little - 120 million quid - and dream of the football we'd be playing !

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Albrighton is nowhere near as good as people seem to think he is.

His chance will come, tonight probably wasn't the right time to throw him into a Premier League game.

Sorry but I disagree. Instead we try and shoe-horn Heskey into the team. Albrighton has been nothing short of a match-winner in every first team match I've seen him in. He nearly won the Peace Cup on his own. He has genuine quality and he seems to have the head to handle first team opportunities - and that's an intangible quality you can only gauge once he's playing in the first team. With Milner out and us playing 2nd from bottom this was exactly the right stage for him. He has sat on the bench long enough chomping at the bit.

It's clear now that O'Neill is absolutely petrified to make changes to his teams to the extent that any enforced changes are made using trusted senior players in unfamiliar positions. It is infuriating and suggests he might not have what it takes to truly to get to the top. The fact he holds pathetic grudges too reflects badly on him. I'm really angry with tonight's result main because it was avoidable if we'd picked a proper team with balance and personnel in their rightful positions rather than patched it together unnecessarily.

seconded BOF :)

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At this level the young player has got to be pretty special or you've got to be pretty desperate to chuck him in.

I applaud MON for going in with a team containing our 3 senior strikers (all Internationals) and one of the best wingers around for an away game. Heskey isn't up to playing his natural position so I've no idea why he had him on the left which also screws Young up by playing extensively on the right so I'm not saying I would have done that but then again I'm not under pressure to get results.

Albrighton is a good lad, but I don't think he is anywhere near as good as people seem to think based on a couple of cameos an away game in Europe and a preseason competition. He is talked about as if he is the answer to all of our problems. It would have been more sensible to have played NRC out on the right as he did relatively successfully on occasion last season as he is dependable and you know what you are going to get. The lack of that dependability is why he doesn't put Albrighton in, or he simply doesn't think he is good enough at the moment.

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he inherited some quality players, the likes of Mellberg, Barry, Laursen, Bouma, Gabby. One by one they have left, and each time they have been replaced by players of lesser quality. We are now seeing the consequences.

Are you suggesting that the squad he inherited was better than the one we have now?

He inherited a handful of decent players, but they were far outnumbered by dross. That's why we were heading for near certain relegation.

(BTW last time I checked Bouma and Gabby were still at the club. And Laursen didn't leave, he was forced to retire.)

No, I'm saying some things dont change.

3 years ago we had 6 quality players - ish. Unfortunately they were surrounded by absolute dross like Samuel , McCann and all which dragged us down.

3 years on and we have about 3 quality players, 4 mediocre players and four shit players dragging us down.

The difference is - or should I say - the 120 million reasons , mean we shouldn't be still in that position.

Put it this way, give Graham Taylor, Ron Atkinson, John Gregory , Brian Little - 120 million quid - and dream of the football we'd be playing !

What 6 quality players did we have 3 years ago?

Shut up.

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he inherited some quality players, the likes of Mellberg, Barry, Laursen, Bouma, Gabby. One by one they have left, and each time they have been replaced by players of lesser quality. We are now seeing the consequences.

Are you suggesting that the squad he inherited was better than the one we have now?

He inherited a handful of decent players, but they were far outnumbered by dross. That's why we were heading for near certain relegation.

(BTW last time I checked Bouma and Gabby were still at the club. And Laursen didn't leave, he was forced to retire.)

No, I'm saying some things dont change.

3 years ago we had 6 quality players - ish. Unfortunately they were surrounded by absolute dross like Samuel , McCann and all which dragged us down.

3 years on and we have about 3 quality players, 4 mediocre players and four shit players dragging us down.

The difference is - or should I say - the 120 million reasons , mean we shouldn't be still in that position.

Put it this way, give Graham Taylor, Ron Atkinson, John Gregory , Brian Little - 120 million quid - and dream of the football we'd be playing !

What 6 quality players did we have 3 years ago?

Shut up.

Ermmm

Off my head here

Barry , Mellberg , Laursen , Bouma , maybe a bit more contraversial , but I think Sorenson was just as good as Friedal has been, and a young Gabby.

On top of these he had Angel - now personally, I didn'tlike Angel - but many on here did. However, I'd rather have Angel tied up in chains, with blindfolds and locked in a suitcase on the pitch than bloody Emile Heskey = so there you go.

I make that 4 undisputed quality players - three of whom would probably make a list of best players we have had in the last 30 yrs , Angel and Sorenson, a young Gabby - AND DONT GET ME STARTED ON CAHILL !!! - not a bad start was it !

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West Ham were hungry tonight, we weren't and haven't been for a while. The examples of Carlton Cole and Zavon Hines sums it up perfectly.

They both had so much energy and were keen through out [until cole got injured] and were exciting to watch and I was worried everytime the ball was near Hines.

Carew and Heskey were poor and lacked movement and general interest and I am starting to get really annoyed with the lack of effort from both of them.

I also believe that O'Neill is determined for 442 to work home and away as he is reluctant to leave Heskey and Carew unhappy, we are paying for this.

451 has worked effectively and in the last two games its been the time to play it and leave 442 for the home games.

Sidwell is seeming to be ineffective and since the Wolves game, his days have been numbered and he needs to be dropped.

We look stale and predictable and completely devoid of ideas, time for a few changes and no better place to start than a home game against Bolton

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What a frustrating night, had to search around for a semi decent stream for ages, which was in Chinese, then had to watch yet another dismal performance.

Positives

Learnt some Chinese

Listening to the Chinese commentator trying to say Agbonlahor. :lol:

Ermm...

We had a bit of possession in the first half

We created a couple of chances

We scored a goal from open play

We can only get better (can't we?)

Negatives

Well where do i start;

MON's definition of squad rotation seems to be to rotate players out of position on a regular basis

MONs definition of a tactical substitution is....yet to be defined

Most of our players looked like they had been laced with ketamine

All in all it was a performance i have unfortunately come to expect, much like many of the games this season, and many towards the end of last season.

Our defense looked fairly solid again, but it's having to soak up a lot of pressure recently and make a lot of last ditch tackles. Probably why we have had so many penalties against us this season. We're bound to conceed a few when attacking teams often seem to cut through our midfield like butter. Brad did ok but would have loved to see Guzan play today though. Warnock played well but i'm not sure why he is taking so many set pieces now, his delivery has generally been very poor. I don't think Beye had a particularly great game but don't think he deserved to be sent off. Two harsh yellows in my opinion. Good to see Luke Young back though.

The midfield looked combative in the first half and managed a bit of possession, but still looked disjointed. And in the second half it looked non existent for much of it. Ash looked better than he has for a while but still looked poor with a lot of bad crosses. It wouldn't be too bad if all of his bad crosses went in for a goal. Unfortunately they don't. Sidwell and Petrov laboured for most of the game, and what the hell was Heskey doing on the left? I thought Reo Coker was as good as it got on the night, played with a bit of dynamism that the other players were severly lacking, looked like he had something to prove, either to MON or the West Ham fans.

Carew and Gabby didn't have much to work with to be honest, but then again they looked stagnant and devoid of ideas too and never looked like they might create something out of nothing with a bit of individual flare or magic.

Steve Bennet - how can one man get so much so wrong?

Really the season so far has been a string of fairly poor performances and results interspersed with a couple of hard fought and gritty ground out performances against Liverpool and Chelsea. We hardly looked like world beaters when we won those games either. It's a pitty because we have had a real opportunity this season with other teams stumbling, to take advantage of and get ourselves up near the top of the table. As it is we're 7th, but only a couple of loses or draws away from 11th. It's obviously a tough premiership this season but it's frustrating because i think we have the players to do better.

Something isn't right in our team and just isn't clicking, and it hasn't really done so since the beginning of the year, and MON has to find the solution. We look solid in may ways and work hard off the ball but where is the football? We seem to expend all our energy on defending these days and then when we get the ball don't know what to do with it. In a lot of the games i have watched recently our movement off the ball when we have possession has been really poor, not enough players moving into space and offering themselves for the ball. It almost seems that when we get the ball players think that they can take a rest for a bit. I think it's mostly tactical decisions by MON that has us playing this way and i think he really needs to assess the way our midfield and attack are set up. I've not been one always advocating the 4-5-1, it certainly doesn't mask all of our faults, but at least we played some good football when we played that way. Definately a solution for the short term, as for the long term solution, i'm not sure MON has it.

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8 of our 11 league games this season have been against the bottom half. In those 8 games we have 11pts. Just over 1pt per game. The other 3 games against the top half have yielded 7pts which is over 2pts per game. Why can we not beat the shit? It's really annoying.

Because there is something horribly wrong with our players attitude towards the less attractive fixtures. Even the General has alluded to it in his thread.

Ok it's wonderful that we get really fired up for the top 4 games and even win these days, but who gives a **** when that passion evaporates against Wigan, Blackburn or West Ham.

We need to be beating those teams as well if we're to finish in the top 4.

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8 of our 11 league games this season have been against the bottom half. In those 8 games we have 11pts. Just over 1pt per game. The other 3 games against the top half have yielded 7pts which is over 2pts per game. Why can we not beat the shit? It's really annoying.

Because there is something horribly wrong with our players attitude towards the less attractive fixtures. Even the General has alluded to it in his thread.

I'm really not sure this has anything to do with attitude. The top teams attack us and leave us space upfront for Gabby, Ash and Milner to exploit. The lower teams mostly sit back against us, and we simply don't have any players with the creativity to break them down.

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