Palace (A) can we clip the Eagles wings or will we fade & die (Match Thread 28.10.17)

SuzanneClaret

I didn't think you were Grey.... I'm just venting.

Well actually I'm doing anything other than the homework I should be doing..

Hamstew

I might see if I can get hypnosis into hating football and loving tiddlywinks

SuzanneClaret

You won't believe what my home work is.



A 30 minute tool box talk on first aid for a suicidal crisis!

NEoldiron

Someone on here asked what made Noble kick off at the end of the game, does anybody know?
Has MA given an explanation for his stupidity?

Lukerz

Tbf, although Antonio was a muppet, the defensive shape was dreadful and the team generally bad, what was Hart doing to get beaten by that shot from Zaha?

It seemed to just trickle past him. He seems to never move his feet anymore. Just collapses in the centre of the goal.

grey_til_I_dye

Might have been partly at fault for the goal, but I thought Hart was in very good form overall.

grey_til_I_dye

Suze

Cut it down to 5 seconds.

'Cheer up! You could be a Hammer!'

IronHerb

That was 100% Antonios fault.

welovethehammers

Just rewatched the match (well just the highlights). I picked up on a few things for their 2nd goal which I didn't notice the first time time round:

Antonio has ran down the wing with Chicharito, Ayew and Fernandes all driving forwards to get in attacking positions in anticipation for Antonio's cross. That's a LOT of players going forward. Especially considering Antonio was replacing Zabaleta and therefore meant to be a defensive player. We still had 2 strikers on the pitch (Ayew & Hernandez) which is bold as it is when hanging onto a lead. And then Fernandes seems to love getting forward from a central midfield role as soon as we attack (perhaps potentially a little naive). Not sure where Lanzini had gone. So at that point it left just Noble by himself in midfield with a defence of Rice Ogbonna Kouyate and Masuaku. No wonder we conceded here. There was NO midfield. Madness when it's near the end of the match and we are holding onto a 1 goal lead. In that situation Antonio has to either shield the ball in the corner or only cross it in if he is VERY confident that the ball is going to end up in the net (it's only going to do that with a decent cross which his wasn't). So in the end they had a breakaway and Noble was the only player in midfield. He tends to get overrun in midfield as it is anyway when he has all his midfielders with him. So when you leave him in midfield by himself he's got no chance. Players can jog past him and he can't keep up. Unfortunately he has short legs, slow acceleration and sprinting and can't cover ground quickly especially when by himself. For me this comes down to tactical naievity and poor discipline. I realise we have one or two youngsters in the team. Fernandes shouldn't have bombed forward (he clearly got excited) - no need to bomb forward with Ayew and Hernandez there. Antonio would rather attack than defend even though he was meant to be playing a defensive role (dealing with Zaha who happened to score which is no coincidence when his marker is at the other end of the field). But I guess that's part of the problem when you have Rice in defence, Kouyate in defence, and Masuaku in defence when for me the first two are central midfielders and Masuaku is a left winger.

We really need one more QUALITY centre back and one more QUALITY centre midfielder. But not someone who will be over £20m and turn out to be a waste of money.

MrsGrey

NEoldiron said:

Someone on here asked what made Noble kick off at the end of the game, does anybody know

The match report I saw said it was a reaction to something said by the Palace fans.

Bazshuayi

Like I suspect virtually all of us, I've always been West Ham and always will be....

Yes, I am not content with the ways things are going, the way we're playing etc and also with our choice of manager.

West Ham bring me joy and pain like sunshine and ermm sorry got sidetracked! Mostly disappointment over 44 years but with some highs that lasted for weeks purely because there was no expectation at the time of those joys. When my family moved to West London I was still little enough to support a different team but I had no desire to do so. Perhaps its like a long term relationship where sometimes it gets rocky and sometimes its amazing etc etc

Recently (last season and this) I have found a solution. For sheer football enjoyment I dont expect anything from West Ham. They have my loyalty and still provoke plenty of different emotions. But when I want to enjoy football I watch another team....

Last season it was Liverpool. This season (and I suspect next) its Man City. They entertain me. I enjoy the team, the style and the level of quality.

In my LTR with West Ham, Man City are my mistress. Sometimes I feel guilty and ashamed, sometimes I love the guilty pleasure ;wink If they mess up ( like WBA's second goal) it doesnt matter because they cant hurt me...

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

IronHerb said:

That was 100% Antonios fault.

No it wasn’t, it was mainly his fault, the ball still has a long way to travel after he made the biggest mistake, which was the kind of mistake the drives managers nuts, because again it was so simple and so avoidable.

Then you have Kouyate did virtually nothing to stop Zaha and neither did Rice either, the ball went through his legs, I’m not sure how anyone has blamed Hart in all this, the only reason Hart should come into it is because well he’s part of our team and they should and will all look at each other and think “what more could I of done to help prevent the goal” and most top keepers think like that anyway

;ok

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Under “normal” circumstances that would be seen as a half decent away point, however the timing of their goal is always going to make it feel worse. If feels bad because we’ve not done enough against the lower teams and the last 18 months has seen us get battered by all the big guns, hence people are rightly wary of games against those types of teams.

When you break the game down, we’d done “okay”’in the first half and didn’t see many complaints as unusually for us we took our chances, however the timing of the subs that had to be made was critical.

We couldn’t use AC as an outlet (or Arnie) when under the cosh. Bringing Antonio on for Zaba “should” be fine, it gives someone with pace to deal with Zaha. trouble is Antonio doesn’t have a very good football brain, he’s a bit of a bull in a china shop and rabbit in the headlights at times. That being said he gives his all and has been a decent player for us.

He’s made a mistake, but then again so did Kouyate and Rice didn’t do enough. We also have to question Ogbonna that is awful to do that after 5 mins when the last words from the manager leaving the dressing room were probably “keep it tight first 15”......

The longer it goes before they pull one back the more desperate they get.

We’ve now got to make this up, that game won’t kill us but dropping another 2 points late on from a winnable position like Burnley will hurt us and it has to stop.

Problem is, we’ve been doing it for 3 years now and while I think it’s a mental issue, Slav has to take responsibility for it, because well he’s the Manager

;ok

IronHerb

But the opportunity for the ball to travel anywhere should not of been an option.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Say he’s gone to the corner and lost it there or it goes out for a goal kick/throw and still work it down the field? It could still easily of come back. We will never know.

He’s made the biggest mistake but there were others after that

Clactonite

So not only the kick in the teeth of conceding so late but Fonte, Reid and maybe Cresswell getting injured too, plus Zab suspended, next week could be interesting!

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Yep agreed Clacton, all this now has a knock on effect to the LFC game

thornburyiron

SCHB my guess is had he taken it to the corner and lost it over the line or even blasted it wildly out for a goal kick or throw in the ref would have blown for full time. Once Palace attacked it was likely the ref would wait until the ball was lost before blowing or it was in midfield as that seems to be what happens in most games.

baracks_a_hammer

Clactonite said:

So not only the kick in the teeth of conceding so late but Fonte, Reid and maybe Cresswell getting injured too, plus Zab suspended, next week could be interesting!

Well a few weeks ago, wasn’t our manager pretty excited about the fact that barring ginge, he finally had the injury free squad he wanted to select from? Since then (in the league) we’ve had the somewhat underwhelming spectacles of Burnley, Brighton and Palace. So now we are back to a mini crisis? From my own point of view I almost think it doesn’t make a huge difference who is/is not available as I am now pretty much programmed to expect poor quality football whoever takes the field.

Hammerex

I agree with most of the above and Bilic as manager has to take the flak, but
Antonio cost us the win, all he had to do was to kick the ball into row Z and the
match was over, Bilic can't be blamed for Antonio's stupidity.

welovethehammers

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard said:

IronHerb said:

That was 100% Antonios fault.

No it wasn’t, it was mainly his fault, the ball still has a long way to travel after he made the biggest mistake, which was the kind of mistake the drives managers nuts, because again it was so simple and so avoidable.

Then you have Kouyate did virtually nothing to stop Zaha and neither did Rice either, the ball went through his legs, I’m not sure how anyone has blamed Hart in all this, the only reason Hart should come into it is because well he’s part of our team and they should and will all look at each other and think “what more could I of done to help prevent the goal” and most top keepers think like that anyway

;ok

Kouyate and Rice were likely worried about giving away a penalty. Zaha is so quick footed you can easily try and kick the ball then next thing you know Zaha drags it away and you kick his foot. In addition he does go down easily so combining the two is a hard combination. The fact we'd given a penalty away already this game I'm sure was on their minds. Also last time Zaha was in that position he blasted a shot at Hart which he palmed away, so I'm sure it was in Kouyate/Rice's minds' that if Zaha does get a shot away Hart will probably save it (while he probably won't save a penalty).

alderz

It was pathetic of him to lose it where he did, but at the end of the day it’s in the hands of their keeper and we let them break so easily, nobody covers themselves with glory defensively.

To blame Hart is astonishing, tbh.

everhopeful

grey_til_I_dye said:

Ham

I know what you mean. ;ok

That said, the first game I took my boy to was a terrible 0-0 draw, and he turned to me at the end of the game and said

'That was brilliant! Can we come again next week?'

Sorry to be late to the party. The first game I took my son to was a 4-0 drubbing at Elland Road in the late 90's. He turned to me at the end of the afternoon and said: "Great dad, four goals and a sending off" How do you explain to a six year old yes, son, but their goals and our sending off (Razor Ruddock!)

baracks_a_hammer

Re: Antonio

Granted he was pretty culpable overall.

However there were at least two of our players who had sprinted forward into their box. He looked up saw them and tried to find one of them.

Now obviously executing a pass to find a team mate is not a particular strength of ours right now, however had Antonio not seen two eager West Ham shirts, who had marauded forward into their box in the 97th minute, then even he, I think, would have just turned around and shielded the ball in the corner as he’d have had no other option.

IronHerb

But those two attackers only had one defender to worry them and Antonio found him.

tomkinsworldclass

In retrospect you can criticise players going forward to try and score, but we had a significant numerical advantage on the break and a clear chance to wrap it up 3-1 in a similarish way to a few seasons back when Payet scored to make it 3-1. For me, it lies entirely with Antonio; either take it to the corner or drive into the box and pick out a west ham man or possibly get a pen off a tired Palace challenge or win a corner or something....anything....just not what he did do!........... instead, a lazy chipped nothing cross straight into the hands of Speroni. Incredible.

Following on from the Brighton match it might come across as though I'm singling Antonio out specifically but its basic things which a pro footballer at any level should do and I honestly dont know why he has atrophied so much this season (performance-wise) but they are costing us big time and the manager keeps gets all the blame. The Header which Hart tipped onto the bar late on at 2-1 was directly from Antonio not being switched on and getting caught under the ball again a la Brighton. Antonio is an important player for us but if he continues to show a lack of aptitude then he should be left out until he starts engaging and being switched on. Nobles reaction after the whistle tells you everything you need to know about what he thought of the situation.

Its painful because it is all self inflicted from a position of such strength but as soon as Ogbonna gave away that moronic penalty 5 mins into the second half, the players lost their way. We needed to be professional, to keep it tight, let them get frustrated and see it off on the counter attack to make it 3 or 4 nil but we didnt. Even though CPFC were dominating we still had great opportunities on the counter but poor decision making cost us again; I can recall fernandes playing it through to chicharito too late and Mensah getting back to cover, likewise us developing an overload on the let hand side but ayew deciding to play it back instead. Now its an important week going into the Liverpool match and the lads have to deliver a performance.

thornburyiron

After every poor game which to be fair is pretty well all of them, at least one player says we will learn from our mistakes before the next game, this week it's Ayew BUT they never do or if they do they invent a different one.

IronHerb

I've noticed that too but it's all PR/Media in an attempt to placate the fans.
Perhaps this week Antonio will tell us how his new goal celebration is going. ;biggrin

welovethehammers

We had 2 shots against Palace and scored 2 goals. If we had more efforts on goal I'm sure we would've been out of sight. A lot of it is a stats game - the more shots, the more goals is often the way. The reason Palace got back into it is because they had 45 minutes of attacking and we defended for 45 minutes.

SuzanneClaret

The reason Palace got back into the game was that we gave them two goals. Had the game gone on for another 15 mins I have no doubt we would have given them a third.