I just don't know what it is about Upton Park but for a good few years we haven't seemed comfortable playing there. If we're not in the lead within the first 15 mins then, yes, the crowd can get on the players' backs but I really can’t see how this has such a negative impact. These are professional sportsman & before everyone goes "Yes but they're still human" they've lived with pressure all their lives, they've lived with being the best kid at school, the one that everyone wants to kick lumps out of because they're the best, they've lived with YTS schemes and scholarships where there’s 30 kids & maybe only 1 or 2 will make it professional, they've lived with playing reserve team football & shining above others to get themselves into the first team. Pressure, pressure, pressure is what they've been bought up on, yet a few irate fans can seemingly turn them to jelly? I just don’t get it.
I was intrigued by Sam’s post match comments: last week against Palace the players got booed off after a 0-0 draw, Sam comes out & says the players aren't happy & they don’t deserve that; last night the players got booed off after a 1-1 draw with Watford yet he comes out after this game saying the players have a duty to step up to the mark & they didn’t do so. Please tell me the difference between the 2 games? It all smacks of a little bit of desperation to me.
Too many players simply didn’t perform last night; you see it, I see it, yet the manager can't. Faubert was truly awful yet he stayed on the pitch for 90 minutes. Why? Why was Taylor the one to make way? Taylor may not have done much last night but he sure performed better than Faubert & knowing the amount of injury time to be added was around the 10 minute mark, why would you not keep the man who is the best set piece taker in the club on the pitch? There are two wide players there, one having a nightmare & one not playing particularly badly but not really involved too much. I can’t even see the quandary for Allardyce if it were just those facts, but considering one of those players is capable of scoring, or at least assisting with any set piece, yet he's the player who's taken off is absolutely farcical. I'm disillusioned by the whole thing.
Nolan and Noble cannot play together in a two man midfield, it’s been blindingly obvious all season yet still we persist, same tactics & same long ball crap. The ball was repeatedly pumped long all night. I could understand it if you had a 5 man midfield with 3 central players to feed off the scraps, drop downs & second balls yet Noble was almost playing as a defender & Nolan as a striker, consequently Watford won the second ball every time. I could see that after 10 mins of football but does anything change? Does it hell! Maynard looks a totally crap: poor movement, poor link up play, poor first touch, poor decision making; Baldock comes on & looks exactly the same, he’d only been on the field for a couple of mins when he was sent away down field one on one with the defender who he can clearly skin for pace but he pulls up, tries to lay the ball off & loses possession - it's rank poor decision making & it's costing us dear.
Surely someone in the management team can see the players weaknesses and should be on the training ground all day long with them if necessary to try and fix it. Faubert has never been able to cross a ball properly in the whole time he’s been here, and the crossing of O’Brien, McCartney and Taylor was abysmal too; so why aren’t the players out on the training pitch all day and all night if need be throughout the week to get the ball right? It’s not good enough and every single season ticket holder has been well and truly short changed yet again this season.
I don’t know what the answer is but ultimately any issue will never be solved without admitting there’s a problem, and therein lies the truth. No one with any power or control at the club has the balls to admit it……and isn’t that just West Ham all over!!!!!!!
Anony-mouse says,
ReplyDeleteI agree that Noble and Nolan can't play together in a four man midfield- they can in a five though. If we have a four man midfield to allow two strikers it has to be with Diop as the anchor allowing Noble to play further forward in the knowledge that he isn't the main defensive midfielder.
I also agree that leaving Faubert out there was beyond weird. What position was he last night? Winger? Midfielder? Back up centre forward? I just don't know. He reminded me of an energetic tot playing kickabout in the garden just aimlessly bumbling towards the ball and just getting in the way without having a clue as to what he should be doing. Fine if you're four, but not if you're in your 2's.
Bit unfair on Baldock- we definitely had more width with him and Vaz Te out there. One things for sure, whoever it is, one of our strikers needs to step up and realise he can become loved by our support these next few weeks if only he has the confidence and spirit to grab this league by the balls.
Finally- the crowd. I know players get paid tons and they should be able to cope with a bit of abuse but it doesn't work like that. A mate of mine played for a big North East team- he hates their fans for the abuse they gave him. He said it made him and others not want to make mistakes, not take risks and not actively seek the ball. Before antony says it, my mate is a top bloke as mentally strong as you or me. He just got ground down. I have no idea why the man who sat yards from me in the West side last night didn't make a peep in the first half, until roundly booing them at half time. I just know he didn't support the team and instead helped Watford. Our crowd now more often act as the other eam's 12th man rather than ours.
Sorry for the long post.
This is a great read. You're absolutely right,I couldn't have put it in a better way. The lack of quality crosses still baffles me to this day. If all we do is play long ball,then at least the wingers,widemen and full backs need to do so properly. Who knows,maybe we'll sell Nolan to QPR next season when they'll be in the Championship.
ReplyDeleteok we aint great but we are in a division that we need to get out of your right regarding nolan and noble in a 4 man midfield i think its a terrible tactic 4 5 1 but it seems the only tactic bfs can play with even home games
ReplyDeletetaylor being taken off last night well would lyall have taken devonshire off after 60 mins i dont think so the way i look at it we have about a dozen games left of this division with a bit of luck then hopefully next season in the prem lge things will be different
maynard and baldock need time on the pitch to become match fit they aint gonna get it with half matches our reserve side has a new name the development team or whateva maybe half last nights team and subs should get a bit of match practice in there
we are in the run in now and if for the rest of the season we have to play 451 then so be it if it gets us out of this league even home games
like a lot of people i thought nolan was gonna be great for us but he aint bfs has lots of good young players at the club that he seems against sticking in theres a big step up from youth football we know but he just seems against our youth players maybe there crap but they need a chance he had the chance around christmas to stick hall in but never took it
the strange thing is we are near the top of the league with a side full of bfs robots but all we can do is support them and get on with things with a bit of luck barcelona might nick bfs at the end of the season
i read your posts nearly everyday and its clear you dont know the 1st thing about football, if u think critsizing our whole squad day after day is the way the players will perform well and have the confidence to play with confidence and get us back in the premier league then u are sadly mistaken. we all knew this season was going to be a hard graft grinding out results sort of season teams come to upton park and park the bus, we havent had anybody that can commit defenders since Yossi Benayoun was here and from what i have seen and read Ravel Morrison could be the next player that could do that . as for you saying slating baldock he looked sharp in the palace game and again last night but once again he doesnt have the confidence yet, personally i would start him saturday against doncaster and believe he will once again look sharp and nick a couple against one of the leakiest defences in the league, our aim at the start of the season was to get promoted and we are 1 point off top spot with a game in hand AWAY, where we play our best fotball bwecause we dont have moronic fans slating the team after 10 minites.
ReplyDelete1817 I didn't write this article.
ReplyDeleteMouse..... You say we had more width with baldock and Vaz te on the pitch and that is partly the issue. Whenever Sam baldock plays he's stuck out wide either on the wing of a midfield 5 or on the flank of an attacking 3, either way he is not a winger. How many managers are we going to have that insist on putting square pegs into round holes? roeder, curbishley, Zola, grant. It's mind numbingly stupid and totally counter-productive yet these fools are paid millions to get it wrong.
ReplyDeleteRe the crowd I do understand what you're saying and people like the man you pointed out get right on my tits. But the players need to take the rough with the smooth, they all want to run and celebrate with the crowd when it's going well and ultimately they are paid (handsomely) to do a job by this football club, it's me and you that are subsidising their huge wages and I do not think it unreasonable that for 90 minutes once or twice a week they run themselves into the ground. If things don't come off then it is their professional responsibility to ensure they go into training every day and put it right. We see the same things going on week after week after week so personally I don't think they are acting in a professional way towards you, me and joe blogs who spends their hard earned money to go and see them.
18.17 there are a lot of things in life that you don't want to put up with but ultimately in whatever profession you do you need to roll your sleeves up and get on with it. As I said in my original post these guys have been bought up with pressure on everything they do. The modern day footballer is so far removed from the real world that I struggle to comprehend how they get that severely effected by a few boos. They have a game plan that presumably they work on throughout the week, they have a prematch team talk where it's drilled into them what's expected. Either way here the players or the management are getting it wrong. We may be second in the league but the football is rank and that very fact that were second shows just how pathetic this legue really is.
ReplyDeleteLook at newcastle 2 seasons ago, are you telling me that their supporters don't get on their backs when they're not doing things properly, I've been to many a game at st james park and let me tell you when they don't do things right they're told about it. It's life, you may be happy with bog standard mediocrity but I'm after a little bit more than that. I manage a large team of people and one things for sure they do not get anywhere without putting it in blood, guts, sweat and tears. That's what I expect from people who are paid 30k a year not a week. Get your perspective right and look further than the end of your nose we are nothing better than average and I will never be happy settling for that.
Your football is shit and if u do come up you will be coming straight back down next season
ReplyDeleteComing back down, not going back down? So you are expecting to be in the Championship then!
ReplyDeleteAnony-mouse says,
ReplyDeleteI take your point Basildon Iron re: Baldock but I hadn't explained myself properly- my post was already too long :) Baldock's movement is better than what we've seen from Maynard so far. It is natural for him to play through the middle but he is comfortable wide as well. This interchangeability of position within the same game helps cos it coud make as less predictable and ponderous and confuses defences- particularly when you have someone else like Vaz Te, who can go down either flank or through the middle, as he did in last night's cameo.
I agree that the players need to toughen up re the crowd, but that doesn't mean that elements of the crowd should react as they do. What always made us special compared to others was our passion, loyalty and pride in the colours. That's changed/ changing. In 1991 we had a player sent off and lost 4 nil in a semi- I get goose pimples remembering being part of our crowd that day. How would today's crowd react to a result like that? Probably boo, call for Bonds's head and f*ck off with half hour to go.
Last point- we are second so we should not be too gloomy. There are 22 teams who would love to be in our position. We will win more than we lose between now and the season's end. This can be done.
Half the division will win more games than they lose between now and the end of the season Anonymouse - that's not enough to win promotion. I agree with you about Baldock and Vaz Te, that's why I had them in my starting line up before kickoff. Now if an idiot like me can see it, and for once you agree with me, why the fcuk can't Allardyce see it?
ReplyDeleteHF, if you had to choose between Noble and Nolan, who would you choose?
ReplyDeleteWith the present personnel, Noble. I would use Tomkins to hold, use Noble as the playmaker and use Talor in midfiled too. Then front three, as Anonymous suggests, of Baldock, Cole and Vaz Te at home. Away, I would bring in Nolan for Baldock and play 4-5-1. But it is a compromise because, as I have kept saying, the bits of the jigsaw don't fit. To play 4-5-1 we need a big strong leader of the line who scores. We don't have one of them. Can Baldock play wide? We will only see if he is given a start. Maynard can't do that job and can't lead the line either.
ReplyDeleteSee the problem is that we don't score a lot of goals and Nolan has got some very important ones for us. Noble has scored some crucial pens but are we going to wait around for penalties?
ReplyDeleteWith the lack of goals currently in our team, I don't know if we can drop Nolan.
I think we need to turn to Morrison.
Anony-mouse says (for the last time tonight),
ReplyDeleteWith that comment about win more than we'll lose I was trying not to be cocky and tempt fate HF. I think we've got a great chance of going up- despite the home draws we still have a record of two points a game in the last six, three of which we played with ten men- not form to panic about.
Your Allardyce comment- the problem is that in midfield and attack we have few stand out players who are automatic selections. That's cos our players whilst better than most others in this league aren't head and shoulders above those competing for their place at West Ham.
Thus we argue about the merits of Maynard over Baldock, or Collison over Lansbury. We argue cos they don't stand out from each other. That's cos we are a championship team and have what we have. If for example we still had a motivated on song Ba and Parker we'd be p*ssing this league. But we lost our better players and have to make do with what we have and can sign. The players we are able to sign do not stand out- otherwise Premiership sides would have had them. So we buy the best that we can afford and who will come.
You could blame Allardyce if he had the dough and signed Messi but insisted on rotating him with Maynard or Baldock, but that isn't the case. You still fail to recognise the magnitude of the mess that he inherited last summer- i for one am pleasantly surprised that we are serious comtenders for automatic promotion.
please don't go!
ReplyDeleteok ok its squeeky bum time...the results at home are not good enough and i know some fans are looking over their shoulders..its time to calm down as some scouser once said..we have the squad.. i think most fans thought Sam bought well in the window..so we move on.. any one going to the game tomorrow just give the boys a break.We have the best squad in this division..don't worry.
ReplyDelete