It's amazing to think that we amassed nearly £20m from the sale of George, Anton and Ginge, but how much of that was reinvested in the defence? da Costa was just a means of off loading Savio, Jacobsen cost in the region of £1million and Reid will cost £4million if he ever cuts the ice. So next to none of it!
Is it any wonder we have struggled when the defence has been completely ignored for three seasons now? Dear God, we spent last season with only Spector and Faubert as an option for right back and with just Ilunga, Daprela and Spector as options for left back.
This season we have pissed around with Gabbidon and Ben Haim in the full back positions (and Tomkins and Reid of course) and we were even reduced to using Upson as a left back! Meanwhile, we have overloaded with mediocre forwards.
What the whuk is going on? I know Sullivan and Gold love the "money shot" but some times you just have to go with protection. The failure to build a back four has been our undoing.
3 comments:
Fab Four? Oh yes, Ferdinand the future England international you said and as for Lucas, your weekly regular venom and bile directed at him got monotonous and boring yet he is now in your Fab Four list. Give it a few months and you'll be having Dyer as a West Ham legend you hypocrite.
0929, you are a long standing fan aren't you? I quote from the article, "I'm not suggesting that any of them individually are or were brilliant, but all teams need a defence that plays as a unit, and since those four departed we have struggled." How exactly am I a hypocrite?
HF, the problem is not so much the defence (except perhaps when Gabbidon is in the middle of it) but rather the total lack of steel in the midfield. AG destroyed everything good we had in that area. He assigned Hitz defensive duties (when he is not much good at it) and by doing that he also rendered him almost useless where he excels usually (going forward and making play for the attack). He persists with 4-3-3 where the other midfielder is a certain Mark Noble who has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt he absolutely can't defend and moreover almost every week commits stupid mistakes that cost us goals.
It's not really the back four the problem (although I agree that he managed to mess up that part as well). I would have had Tomkins ahead of Gabbidon anytime.
In the last four games West Ham has been playing without an effective midfiled line. The attack was totally seperated from the defence. This started with the second half of the MU game and still continues.
The sad thing is, that despite having forwards who can score goals AG has managed by one move to render them totally useless. I don't think there should be any doubt why we are going down this year. Avram Grant is totally clueless and incompetent as manager. But it is not his fault for being who he is. That honour is really solely on the shoulders of the owners. When they decided to suck up to AG in January and save their precious money, we were effectively relegated. There and then!
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