Saturday 19 May 2012

Blackpool Kings Arms 1 West Ham 2 - Played Crap But Never In Doubt!

So there you have it. We didn't turn up on the day, Tomkins and Cole apart, but we still waltzed into the Premiership. Blackpool ran their hearts out bless them, and carved out a host of good chances, but a pub team is always found out in the final third at each end of the pitch, and so it proved.

Full marks to Ollie, he played his mind games all week and sent out a team well pumped up and briefed to exploit our flanks. First ten minutes, Taylor was all at sea at left back and until he went off, Demel was a disaster. Blackpool could have been three goals up inside 20 minutes and should have scored another in the second half. Green was so nearly beaten at his near post, Demel lost the ball for another chance and Taylor did his level best to assist a Blackpool opener too. But was I ever worried? Nope. Not even when Blackpool equalized! Class will out in the end nine times out of ten and Blackpool hadn't lost nine on the bounce against us going in to the game. Never mind you Tangerine Dreamers, your time will come - eventually.

So who played well for West Ham? Cole took his goal superbly and assisted Vaz Te for the second. Generally speaking, he led the line well. Tomkins was excellent at the back, although he over committed himself prior to the move that Phillips really should have scored from in the first quarter of an hour. Vaz Te was lively but should have put the game beyond Blackpool when clean through. Had that one gone in, I fancy we would have won by four or five. But those apart, who?

Green made one good save,turning the ball onto the post, and one routine save, turning a shot from the edge of the box round the post, but otherwise was untroubled except when he collected the ball from the back of his net, having got his angles wrong, allowing Ince too much of the goal to shoot at, and when he nearly fumbled a free kick, hands shaped the wrong way as with THAT USA goal. He isn't a quick learner is he?

Noble was very disappointing despite clearing the ball off the line and delivering a couple of wonderful corners. Nolan's performance was patchy, over-hitting passes, although his shot against the bar oozed class. Reid did OK. Taylor assisted for the goal but was ordinary otherwise. O'Neil was taken off. Collison was ordinary. Demel was awful. Have I forgotten anybody?

The performance overall was somewhere between ordinary and poor but who cares?  You don't have to be great to beat a pub team do you? The trouble is, there aren't many pub teams left in the Prem!

But for now who cares? We are back where we belong and it was great fun doing it via the playoffs. Now the rebuilding begins!

Player Ratings: Green 6, Demel 1, Tomkins 9, Reid 7, Taylor 5; Collison 5, O'Neil 4, Noble 5, Nolan 6, Vaz Te 7; Cole 8 Subs: McCartney 6, Faubert 5


11 comments:

Sav said...

We are back!!! Thank God. I was surely worried. Don't know what you talking about. But it doesn't matter. We are back!!!

Jonathan Ross said...

What a day! Your ratings are spot on, the defense made some poor decisions in both halves, and Vazquez Te looked lost at sea until the winner bounced to him, but the physical effort of the team in winning balls was impressive, at least in the first half. But all that aside, the supporters were simply magnificent! What an atmosphere, even when we all thought it might be going bad. The best 24 hour trip to London I have ever made! I did not sleep on the flight over last night, and am too pumped to sleep tonight! A special day.

fred149 said...

Although i agree that noble was disappointing id give him a 6 as it was him who also sent nolan through who then went on to sort of setup our 2nd. No doubt stani and sav will be criticizing Noble again but HF you are being harsh on green again and that slight fumble which i see top keepers do week in week out was due to the the power in the shot

The Shak said...

I think that's a fair assessment HF, we were not very good but still won. I would have to generally agree with your ratings of our players,but I would give Faubert at least a 6! Noble and Collison were disappointing today,I would have expected more from them today. But all's over now,we are back and hopefully we'll start to build up pretty soon for next season.

Stain said...

Both Tomkins and Reid were excellent.

Green's positioning for the goal was a joke. I bet Ince couldn't believe his luck. He should have been at least a metre further forward.

Time for Allardyce to get busy. The is no point going up if we're going to stick with the same squad. If we do, we're coming back down.

Any news on a parade?

USA Dave said...

Funny how a day like this makes the past year just vanish in my mind.

For all of the justified questions we all asked of Sam and the team, at the end of the day he earned his 1.25 million pound bonus. The end justified the means.

One utterly petty thing, HF. Until his goal, I thought RVT was awful. Rubbish. Crap. On the replay he looked perilously close to missing the winner. I think your 7 was very generous. But it doesnt matter.

Im so happy I can barely sit still. Im gonna mow the lawn....

Anonymous said...

i dont think green is at fault for the goal? if it was let in at the near post you would be absolutely fuming....it was well taken by ince.

but anyway, a premier league season to look forward!!!!!! cheersssss

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna throw it out there.......Reid was pants! Played far too high most of the game and in my opinion showed why we need another first class centre back alongside tomkins. Obviously delighted to go up but the centre back and right back position screams in desperation as well as the wings!! Not taking it away from sam though. COYI!!

Kareem said...

I agree! Definitely not as good a I thought we'd be...but you know what, that's what happens in finals...you can always rely on the fact that a number of players will just not turn up because of pressure or because of how the opposition will play. Ollie pretty much said that the pressure is more on us, which is true. yes, Blackpool want promotion but they were playing for less than us, because we were making up for the fact we missed automatic promotion...They were far the better team most of the time, but we made the most of our chances.

Tomkins and Cole were the two best for me. Nolan and Noble were not up to par but I thought they did alright. Demel was SKINNED, and Taylor didnt do well defensively...McCartney was much better...and Faubert did alright when he came on for Demel...but with O Brien out (and he's usually good), it shows it's time we improve our defense....

Vaz Te was just contained the entire time, but I have no idea how he missed that sitter...at least he scored the winner, haha.

In the final, what matters is the result, and that's what we were able to do - get a win ..

COYI!

Chicken Oriental said...

You gained promotion but by gosh you play some utterly terrible stuff, the academy of football my arse. I'd rather my side play in the conference than have to put up watching that dross every week.
At least the women of Essex have been spared a severe beating :)

Anonymous said...

Crap performance, good result. Soured slightly by the fact BS decided to go with just Cole up front.

I guess he saw it as an away game.

I was really surprised by the huge void in Blackpool end yesterday. And those that did turn up were unexpectedly quiet for much of the game. I think it is fair to say they had the better of a tight game, though our 12th man was far better than there's. Our fans were awesome and was just a joy to be amongst them.

COYI