Tuesday 17 April 2012

Allardyce Hails Heroic Draw at Bristol City and a Great Season

Talking after an epic 1-1 draw at Bristol City which has as good as secured third place for West Ham, Doctor Evil was full of praise for his team:

"We only conceded one goal away from home and you have to be satisfied with that. It's a shame Rob Green was found wanting when the pressure was on but it's not just Rob, individual mistakes have cost us all season."

"Of course there will be the usual bollocks about my tactics. The important thing was not to lose tonight. There will be more bollocks about 4-4-2 and about playing Vaz Te up front but just because Vaz scored a hat trick on Saturday, it doesn't mean he will score if played in an advanced role in the next game. He didn't score when I moved him forward in the second half did he?"

"And there will be the usual Baldock bollocks too. I had John Carew on the bench and he is a Norwegian international. Baldock is a good kid but you don't need kids at the business end of the season, you need experience. That's why Morrison hasn't featured."

"We are safely in third and you have to be pleased with that. Peterborough let us down badly tonight and I'm angry about that. Had they beaten Southampton it would have been all to play for. Bristol City is a difficult place to come to. They are fourth from bottom remember, they're not a bottom three team. But you would expect Peterborough to do better against Southampton. We looked at that game and thought Southampton might struggle. Peterborough's performance has to be seen as very disappointing therefore. I feel very badly let down and I will on the blower to Peterborough to let them know how I feel."

"But let's not forget this team finished bottom last season and we are third now. You have to be pleased with that. Bottom to third represents great progress. It's been a fabulous season when you take everything into account and I have done a brilliant job when all things are considered. Rob Green let me down today just like he let me down against Cardiff in the first game of the season. That's five crucial points Rob has cost me. I'll talk to Rob about that and I'm sure he will apologise."

32 comments:

The Shak said...

Couldn't have summed it up any better... Poor me,I had my hopes up,I really believed we would overcome a side that is fighting for survival. But once again,how wrong was I!!! Damn... Why the hell did we even bring on Carew? By the looks of it,he has wasted so many chances when most probably Baldock would have scored. What a shame for us. We got Cardiff,Blackpool and Birmingham in the playoffs. Blackpool seems the weakest of the lot,we did beat them 4-1 and 4-0 home and away. Cardiff could really be quite tricky and Birmingham is supposedly the strongest in this lot. We'll see how things go..

Anonymous said...

You're trolling us right? If he actually said that then he is an utter cnut who deserves the sack.

saintnev said...

Agent SA did a great job for us tonight! Com on you reds....

Hammersfan said...

Re Carew - He is a lump he Shak, so why wouldn't Allardyce bring him on? Lump it to the Lump. Sophisticated twist on the Lump it up to the Midget tactics!

iswhite10 said...

I'm a Southampton fan and I can honestly say I've never, ever heard such a self-pitying, destructive, self-serving series of egotistically self-excusing series of comments by a manager attacking his own team, specifically attacking his own goalkeeper twice, to defend and excuase his own position and short comings. Sam Allardyce you should be so ashamed of yourself. The money you are on. I've always loved West Ham as a club, so this is in no way a criticism of the Hammers, I hope you go up, but Allardyce, I re-iterate you should be ashamed of yourself. And if, if, in the dark hours of the night, you really wonder why you aren't doing better than you are, the answer is in the mirror. But you are SO not man enough to recognise it, you bullying, posturing, macho fool. DFo you really think anyone apart from you is fooled by that? Putting aside all the BBC Panoramanm allegations of creaming off cash at Bolton by yourself and your son. Shame on you Alllardyce, especially tonight. Blaming one player for all your mistakes. Shame on you. Ian White.

Anonymous said...

Anon, he never said that - that's HF parodying BFS's 'style'.....a bit too closely for comfort though :-)

All the yap about 'best squad in depth' was nonsense. Still no 'team' there, and we will get done in the semis, I'd put money on it. Slow boys - apart from Vaz Te, Lansbury, Baldock and the unseen Morrison - are going 'nowhere'.


gateman

iswhite10 said...

sorry, got a bit carryed away... I hate Dr Evil (we really call him that on the south coast) more fool me. Sorry Hammers fans.... Still hate Allardyce tho x

Anonymous said...

22:16 You comments are right but should be directed at the blog writer who made up this rubbish. Very hard to understand how he calls himself a hammers fan.

Hammersfan said...

LOL I was getting worried ISWhite10. If people took this seriously he might be able to sue me!

Anonymous said...

DONT WANT TO BE A NEGATIVE, BUT WHEN DID THE TEAM THAT FINISHED THIRD IN THE LEAGUE WIN THE PLAY OFFS??????.
AND ALL THAT TALK ABOUT CATCHING SOUTHAMPTON, THAT WAS NEVER ON IN A MONTH OF SUNDAYS.THEY ONLY NEED TO WIN ONE OUT OF TWO.
HEDGE END BOB ( ONE OF YOUR BOYS LIKES TO CALL ME HEDGE END KNOB, BUT HE WHO LAUGHS LAST COMES TO MIND) WE ARE GOING UP, WE ARE GOING UP

iswhite10 said...

Ha! You're right. But, in my (weak!) defence, the world kind of half thinks He might just say what you said... X

Anonymous said...

Very apt piece this. Saints fan here that had a soft spot for the hammers until big Sam got the job. All his talk about playing a certain way to get out of the division has backfired on him. He had the players to play the game the right way but alas that's not his way. However he made me a happy man tonight with saints winning. Hope you go up in the play offs but staying in the championship may be the only way to get the directors to sack him. I will probably get slaughtered for this but I've always though holloway would be the ideal man for the hammers.

Scummer Rich said...

Another Saints fan here (your page shows up on Newsnow regularly). I have read a couple of self deprecating blogs on here and I think that they are bang on the money - keep up the good work.

Can't see you catching us now, but if you do play on the floor and go attacking 4-4-2 like you did against the disappointing BHA then you should go up. Still, you will need to earn it rather than assume absolute supremacy as some kind of divine right like some of your fellow fans!

Sav said...

There is nothing really more I can add to the comments made by the Southampton fan (Ian White), and good luck to you guys in the Premier League.

Big Sam is pathetic and so wrong for West Ham United. I would be very surprised if we make it through the playoffs. Unfortunately, I don't see our owners having the courage to admit that they made a mistake in choosing the manager, once again. Last Saturday was clearly the exception to the rule.

Well buckle up guys, we are in for a long stay in the Championship. I wonder how West Ham V Barnsley will look in an half empty Olympic Stadium?

Anonymous said...

You're counter seems to have been hacked and reset back to nought?! careless HF very careless.

Hammersfan said...

Don't need it any more 22.55. Blogspot now does the analysis for me. For example:

Pageviews today
4,526

Pageviews yesterday
3,320

Pageviews last month
110,453

Pageviews all time history
1,528,214

United Kingdom 1,007,820

United States 149,336

Australia 48,199

Ireland 30,240

Germany 20,514

Canada 17,347

Norway 12,296

Cyprus 5,504

France 5,063

Brazil 3,076

Deane said...

Grange Park pratt or Hedge End Knob as you call yourself I think you might find that Swansea finished third last season sort of proves you are a knob well called

Anonymous said...

Anony-mouse says,

Disappointing result tonight- sounds like we started well, tailed off, but still had the chances to win it in the second half.

Play-offs it is then. Bit of a lottery, we all know that, but we have at least as much chance as anyone else in them. I would fancy us to win at least one leg against any of our likely rivals and seeing as we are hard to beat that could well be enough to get us to Wembley. We'll see.

Its time for unity now and a bit of belief- no really- we are at last again scoring goals and have been beaten just twice in the last 20. We could be in a lot worse shape than that.

Hammersfan said...

Four of the last six third placed teams have gone up I believe Deane.

Brendan said...

Anony-mouse we have only won 8 in 20 as well. Sorry but if we would have had 34 points at the beginning of the year as well we would barely be in the playoffs. Remember that we also had a 4 point lead atop not long ago. Sam has royally fcuked this up.

Anonymous said...

Seeing as our last two games don't matter that much - with an 8 point cushion - maybe BFS will play Morrison, or Baldock against Hull or Foxes.


Carew is a joke by the way.....worse than Piquionne.

Sav said...

Wow, more West Ham supporters in Cyprus it seems that in the whole of France!

Now you must come to Cyprus for your summer holidays HF!

Hammersfan said...

LOL Sav, I think 5,500 of those hits are you!

Sav said...

50 is more likely. There are more of us in Cyprus. I know a few of them.

Anonymous said...

Anony-mouse,

Brendan- I know what you're saying but I don't agree that Allardyce has 'f*cked it up'.

Even if we don't go up (and I still think we probably will) our club was f*cked up long before Allardyce came to it. Brown, the Tevez saga, Eggy and the profligate Icelandics and then Grant.

Til my dying day I will maintain that for his faults, Allardyce has done a good job in somehow dragging this club off its knees and creating a hard to beat, disciplined unit.

I'd at least ask you to reserve judgement on Allardyce until the season's end. Then by all means if you and others want him out then fine- I'll respect that even though I'll disagree with you of course :) Until then let's have no post-mortems on a season that is still very much alive. People talk about the West Ham way- part of it is has always been about not showing weakness or disunity in front of our enemies and not giving them succour by looking dis-united. This will give our team the best chance of achieving what you and I both want.

I'll shut up now :)

Anonymous said...

Fake! your hit counter before it was hacked showed 1.7 - so who is to be believed? anyone?

Hammersfan said...

Very easily explained although your obsession is interesting. When I was in Romania, I obviosly visited the site to post threads, post comments, respond to comments etcetera. Each visit recorded as just one visit once I was logged on. The hit counter was cruder, it clicked each page visited after logging on. How do I know? Two visits each day from Romania on the stats. Excellent service!

Again, not that it matters. The traffic is increasing month on month, and I can now identify which ULRs direct the traffic, which thread gets the most hits, where those hits come from, the volume of hits per hour through the day etcetera. As a stats man, I find it fascinating!

Hammersfan said...

For your further delectation, at 7.08 the stats for today read:

Pageviews today
709
Pageviews yesterday
5,707
Pageviews last month
107,557
Pageviews all time history
1,530,104

Two years ago I was getting 500 hits per day, now 709 before people have woken up!

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised there ain't Malta in the top 10 list. I know of a good 30-40 avid fans over here and if we get one hit each a day (I do!) that would mean in excess of 10k a year haha

The whole Maltese Hammer Community shall be meeting on the 3rd of May to support our beloved team in the playoff lottery. COYI !

Chunky said...

Anony-Mouse 00:00, hard to beat we may be but we are also hard to lose against because, last saturday apart, our scoring record is terrible.

BFS is good at one thing, keeping goals out. This may be a good thing if you plan is not to get relegated but it was never going to win us a league. If we do go up via the playoffs and keep BFS next season can you honestly see it being any more than a typical Bolton season under him? Bottom half every year and playing shite football?

Personally i think another year in the fizzy pop could be a blessing in disguise. If we win the playoffs we will get a day to celebrate, sure, but i can see next season being a year of misery. If we can build a squad like Pardew did and play attractive, attacking football we can go up and take the PL by storm like we did in 05-06. Even if we get found out after one season it will still be a better foundation to stay afloat in the PL for the long term.

Don't get me wrong, i will be cheering on the boys in the playoffs (what sort of fan would i be if i didn't?) but i won't be screaming that the sky is falling if we fail this time around.

Anonymous said...

Curious?
Is he called "BIG FAT SAM" because he eats so much chocolate (Your picture) - Surely your not suggesting the poor man speaks the stuff that will "Hit the fan" when he loses in the play offs???

Anonymous said...

Anony-mouse says,

Chunky - I agree with much of what you say. If we could be financially viable by staying in this league another year or two it wouldn't bother me either. Some of the best away days over the years have been in this division- and I'm yet to go places that I want to go to like the new Brighton ground, Blackpool, etc. Trouble is I don't think we will be viable if we stay down so we need to go up.

And whilst I think he's the manager we needed this year I'm not blinkered when it comes to Allardyce. If there was a vote where the options to describe him were 'gung-ho' or 'cautious' I'd go with option B every time. But we needed some of that- our team has been all over the place and easy to beat ever since a similar manager, Curbishley, was booted out. Allardyce has started with the basics- by getting his defence right, and despite one or two poor defensive displays we still have the third best defensive record in the league.

Slow steady progress is what is needed. With that in mind and to answer another of your points I see him building steadily again next year, finances permitting (which they may not). We are starting to get a sight of it now- bringing in RVT has bought another dimension to the team. Just like when he built slowly at Bolton and eventually ended up with the likes of Djorkaeff and Okocha. He's a practical man and the evidence of his time at Bolton suggests that when he is able to he does sign the kind of player we love to see in our shirt. Also he's not daft- he will know his only way to win our fans over is to sign those type of lads- something Curbs for example failed to do.

I hope he gets the chance to prove me right or wrong about this. We'll see.