Bournemouth (A) - Saturday 11th March 3pm

IronHerb

Yeoldhammer said:

5 out of 10 games against top 10 opposition? So 5 games really to try get those 5 or so points.

I think we have built a team around a guy who can't play more than 20 games a season.

The team was built around Payet.

thornburyiron

Mrs G no I wasn't being serious. My don't exist comment was down to the fact we don't seem to learn from mistakes so is there a coaching team actually there or are they just made up.

MrsGrey

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Bazshuayi

grey_til_I_dye

Twist

Low funds?

Not much short of £70m this season and some £45m the season before.

Seems like a lot to me.

puddleglumhammers

Didn't see the match today but the bench was weird. No Calleri or Fletcher. 3 defenders. Why? I hope we get big bucks for Carrol in the summer from China and go back to playing football, not headball.

thornburyiron

Watched the game again and still can't see all the positives that Slav said he took from the game. After Ayew was caught in possession for the last goal he was still getting to his feet when the goal went in. He wasn't injured so why didn't he get straight to his feet and try to retrieve the situation.
Bournemouth were all over us and deserved to win by more than one goal. They were always looking to do something whereas we were for the main part strolling around. For their second goal Obiang was asleep and let King get past him. That's two successive games we've conceded from a set piece and given possession away outside the opponents penalty area and just let them break awa so obviously didn't work on that during the week.

secrethammersfan

Would anyone take Wenger?

NEoldiron

Teams know that if they put the effort in against us they'll get a reward.
When B'mouth counterattacked there were 5 of them all sprinting, and if it didn't work out they sprinted back, whereas we seem to just stroll back. We just seem so disjointed.
We definitely don't have a Plan B, or a Plan A come to that!!
They need shaking up. so as a suggestion get Ginge back instead of Fonte, drop Noble (indefinitely), start Byram and tell him this is his last chance to prove he is a full back.
Bilic has to take a lot of the blame for this with his team selection. ;angry

Still, England thrashed the sweaties which made the weekend a little more bearable. ;biggrin

claretandbluesky

Bournmouth - What I liked was that they looked as though Eddie Howe has a strategy with regard personnel, he wants pace as a start point and players who are comfortable with the ball at their feet and a good work ethic.

West Ham - we have not had a coherent personnel policy this summer in my view, or if we did it was one that was based around Europa and so redundant after August. We have also failed to fill the two massive gaps at right back and centre forward during January and the responsibility for that should fall somewhere. I feel perhaps Slav or Sully have got it badly wrong with regard personnel this year and it has made us disjointed virtually all season.

However I still think we have some really decent players who if we can sort out the problem of personnel by either Slav or Sully recognising their shortcomings this season and rectifying it we can still continue looking up. We need spend and we need send the message we have ambition to attract the quality we want, should we do so we are not far off getting back to our best of last season.

I feel Slav is our man and the core of the team good, so I am frustrated at present but can accept we are a work in progress this season, a season which has not gone as planned but we have survived (hopefully).

OutcastLondoner

I thought they played really well and King's finishing was outstanding. He didn't have too many other chances. It highlighted the issues we have up front because we can't always rely on AC, who goes through these patches of not adding much as regularly as his bursts of brilliant form. It's not just about getting crosses into him when he often doesn't get anywhere near them and we end up losing possession.

I don't know if I can really expect anything from us because how handicapped we are by our lack of strikers and a RB. The decision to not fill those positions looks more ridiculous every week.

Vorselaarhammer

Just seen this little titbit, makes you proud... ;doh

----
Bournemouth have only ever scored two hat-tricks in the Premier League.

Both have come against West Ham.

MrsGrey

;wahoo We're in the history books.





;yercoat

Hammerex

Time and time again we lost possession when we got over the half way line, and
then it was like the charge of the light brigade where we was totally out numbered
and what defenders we did have there looked like they were doing a rendition of
the Hokey Kokey. Thank God Randy was at his best as it could have been much
worse.
We must tighten up at the back, as with Leicester next week, if we play like that
again, Vardy and Co. will rip us apart with there speed on the break.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Sakho is a better striker than Carroll
Carroll may be unplayable in the air but his all round game is lacking, he just doesn't react quick everything is in slow motion

Always thought Carroll is best when coming off the bench as he is a nightmare for tired defenders

Sakho has been missed all season, the work rate, movement, speed etc are so helpful for the team to move up the pitch

I've liked Feghouli improvement in 2017 but in terms of impact he is a bench player

What's worrying for me is the regression of 2 of our stars last year Noble and Cresswell. Noble takes the bulk of the abuse as he really has been exposed this season but Cresswell has been pretty woeful as well. Not sure if he's lost his pace or the injury haunts him but you never see him win 50/50s anymore and is always lost when he's up against a winger with pace

Masuaka didn't start great this season (but then who did this year) but maybe it's worth bringing him back in as Cresswell needs a bit of a kick imo

- - - - - - - - Randolph - - - - - - - -
Byram -- Reid -- Fonte -- Masuaka
---- Obiang ---- Kouyate ----
- Antonio --- Lanzini -- Ayew -
- - - - - - - - Carroll - - - - - - - -

Lukerz

Ok. The overreaction on here has been borderline baffling. ;hmm

Sarawakammer

They wanted it more than us. We played the first half with one tactic only, borrowed from Sam's 1980 book "The Boot is on both Feet". But when Ayew came on, we had pace. When Lanzini moved central, we had some craft. Conclusion : we need to scrap the idea that Big Andy can win games on his own, and we need to start (and finish) as though it really mattered. OK, assertions over ;wink

SuzanneClaret

secrethammersfan said:

Would anyone take Wenger?

;lol no thanks

SuzanneClaret

I thought our defending was poor, I doubt though that Bilic and his team trained Fonte to defend like that.

Huttonhammer

There are a number of issues.

We don't play players in correct positions.
We don't have a regular striker.
We make stupid mistakes .
The players lack desire and passion.

Basically the same problems that apart from a few games every now and then have been issues for as long as I can remember at West Ham.

Nothing really ever seems to change whoever the manager is or who we buy. After any slight improvement we always go back to the same old West Ham. Sloppy passionless club.
I want see our players showing passion and desire in every game that is the only way this club will improve.

Never been able to understand why things never change. It seems it is engrained in the culture of the club.

SuzanneClaret

I do not agree at all about the players lack of desire and passion.

OldCastleSwift

Slaven_A_Laugh_Lukerz said:

Ok. The overreaction on here has been borderline baffling. ;hmm

Overreaction? I'm not so sure. We lost to a team that hadn't won all year. And 3-2 flattered us, IMO. Before that we lost to a Chelsea team that didn't get out of second gear, and we couldn't put away either West Brom or Watford.

We have regressed from last season, and although we had a few dodgy performances, on the whole I went into almost every game thinking we could get something. This time round I expect defeat pretty much every weekend, and have done all season.

I was one of Bilic's biggest advocates, but some of his decisions leave a lot to be desired. The right back fiasco, for example. We have two at the club. He doesn't trust either of them. So why not get one in in January? He said he was happy with his options yet doesn't back that up with his actions. I knocked Allardyce for playing Matt Taylor there but at least that only lasted one game. Antonio, Nordtveit and Kouyate have all been deployed there and all have struggled. Why? Because they're not right backs. I mean, what exactly are we paying Arbeloa for?

SuzanneClaret

You have to say OCS makes a good point.

Adam

Re: Carroll

I think we need to remember that this was his second game back from injury, so he isn't as sharp as he was before he got injured against Middlesbrough. The Middlesbrough game was on the 21st Jan.

Huttonhammer

Watch teams that have worse players than us outwork our players in most games.

How can you explain a!team that has not won this year . Completely out playing us and they missed two penalties and scored three goals against us.

The players do not chase back and fight to win games and they are sloppy in their play that's why we make so many mistakes.

As for a Bournemouth player scoring a hat trick against us again there is no other word you can use than pathetic.

It needs to change and the excuses need to stop.

Expat_Hammer

secrethammersfan said:

Would anyone take Wenger?

He's not that quick anymore

;yercoat

Moore_than_a_nick

I don't think we can fairly judge Bilic on the basis of our signings - we don't have enough info about the relative weight of inputs from the management into these decisions. Even when he said he was happy with our RB options, he may well have been trying to protect Byram's confidence - he may be applying the same logic in not starting him too often if he believes his time will come but that he is not yet ready. Rumours suggest we have identified a RB to sign in the summer. We don't know whether Tore and Calleri were his 1st choices or 20th, after 19 others didn't work out. It does appear that he prioritised signing players that could provide ammunition from wide areas for AC, and that we now struggle to fit these new players into a starting XI given that others with different attributes are playing better - yet we continue with the same game plan.

What we can judge him on is what he does with the players he has. And I think in this regard, it is very worrying that many of us on this site foresaw, well in advance of the match, the problems that might arise from playing Kouyate at RB, Lanzini wide, Noble ahead of Kouyate in CM (or ahead of Ayew in the XI), and not playing Ayew. It took Slav at least an hour of the game to see these things. (I don't perhaps attach quite so much importance to Ayew's role in Bournemouth's third goal as others - if he had started, we might have been ahead by that point and he might have been subbed off for Noble or Fernandes - the important thing is that he showed again that he can create and score goals.)

Whether we should also blame him for some bizarre defending from Fonte and Cresswell in particular, I'm not so sure. We don't know what has gone on in training or in their personal lives. But there does seem to be some lack of organisation at the back, which needs attention in training.

I am very much in favour of giving managers (and players) a decent chance to prove themselves. I was proud of our record of having had so few managers up until Harry left. And I really want Bilic to succeed. But I will say that I don't think he's doing a good job this season.

thornburyiron

Whatever the end of this season brings I'm confident we'll see the Hammers at Wembley next season.

SuzanneClaret

Their first pen was a gift from Fegholi - I doubt they told him to do that in training. Yet he bombed up the other end and was instrumental in our first goal.

TwistandShout

grey_til_I_dye said:

Sorry, Twist, if we need a CM and winger we need a new manager. He's had his go at getting those.

With low funds though? Hardly spent anything

grey_til_I_dye said:

Twist

Low funds?

Not much short of £70m this season and some £45m the season before.

Seems like a lot to me.

£70m? On who?

Even if those figures are true that isn't much these days..