Watford vs West Ham United - 19.11.17 - Match Thread

SuzanneClaret

Crack on son ;ok

buffybegood

SuzanneClaret said:

Peru. Winston went to Peru too.

He actually went to New Zealand, and from there to Peru.

Edit, sorry, mis-read your post.

Lukerz

Honestly the way the players have just succumbed to defeat after the second goal is pathetic. Just gone through the motions the last 20 mins.

thornburyiron

I'll be very surprised if we have 12 points by the turn of the year. We need another 30 points from 26 games but even a point a game seems beyond this lot.
What's worse is the whole country get to watch us and laugh at us regularly.

sweepy23

Interesting to hear the commentators state that you can’t change a team within a few days yet there’s normally A positive reaction to a new manager. Unfortunately for us this doesn’t seem to be the case. I’m curious, how many games should a new manager take to get his team playing the way he wants them to play? At what point can we say that Moyes hasnt made a difference or can’t make a difference?

Hamstew

Another Monday at work of constant abuse. Might pull a sickie

Lukerz

Tbf no manager having failed in his last three jobs is going to have an ounce of impact on any players.

However it will take time. We were missing Antonio, Byram, Fonte, Collins, Antonio, Ayew, Chicharito etc. A lot of those players were on international duty too for the majority of his two weeks.

But we haven’t got time to keep losing. We need a reaction pretty soon.

thornburyiron

The most worrying thing is we have a squad full of internationals but few of them seem to have the basic abilities you'd expect. Watford were pinging the ball about but unless we went sideways or backwards we couldn't string more than three passes together and rarely did that.

welovethehammers

My comments on this forum seem to be the same each week - starting from the beginning of the season, which are:

- Adrian is better than Hart
- Cresswell and Masuaku on the left
- Sakho needs to start. And if he does we need other players to get near and around him.
- We seriously miss Collins
- We lack an athletic central midfielder who covers ground, is hard to get past and can get from box to box (i.e everything Noble is not).
- Experience doesn't always work. We shouldn't be afraid of using youngsters or squad players.

MrsGrey

It's like our kit and boots are coated with some kind of anti football substance such that the ball ricochets off in some random direction with added bounce every time we touch it ;weep

Pengeman

How many goals has Hart cost us? HE always looks wobbly and needs to be dropped for the next game. Why did Moyes only use two subs? He could have gone for more creativity in Quina by replacing Noble or Kouyate but he did not. Carroll is just too predictable and the opposing sides are ready for him. May be Moyes is still getting to know the players. He used the same players that Bilic has used and with the same outcome. May be time to try one or two U-23 players as the so-called seniors don't look good enough to stay in the EPL.

Lukerz

And I can’t believe that Zabaleta is our RB for the season. Can’t fault his professionalism but the blokes legs are gone.

Huttonhammer

Another manager who thinks playing Noble is a good idea. Have said for ages , nothing will improve while he is in midfield. Too slow, cannot pass forwards etc I am bored now!!

baracks_a_hammer

Lukerz said:

And I can’t believe that Zabaleta is our RB for the season. Can’t fault his professionalism but the blokes legs are gone.

The cheap option ;ok

SuzanneClaret

Wow....

Just wow...


I need to walk away now.

MrsGrey

Well. Fewer individual errors. Lots of commitment especially Winston Reid who was almost legless by the end and - even though I am not a fan of his - Arnie who apparently asked to stay on. As always, not a lot of quality on display.

welovethehammers

MrsGrey said:

Well. Fewer individual errors. Lots of commitment especially Winston Reid who was almost legless by the end and - even though I am not a fan of his - Arnie who apparently asked to stay on. As always, not a lot of quality on display.

How did you know Arnie asked to stay on?

(Not having a go - simply curious to know)

MarkNobleLocalHero

The sky touchline reporter said so

MrsGrey

Welove, my comms team said that he told Moyes to let him go back on.

thornburyiron

Because the pitch side commentator said he heard him say it.

MrsGrey

Hamstew said:

Another Monday at work of constant abuse. Might pull a sickie

You may find that the other fans won't bother to abuse you, since the West ham fans have pretty much cornered the market in abusing their own club and players.

That imo is what is embarrassing.

thornburyiron

Moyes pretty honest in his post match interview. Not a happy bunny.

Hamstew

MrsGrey said:

Hamstew said:

Another Monday at work of constant abuse. Might pull a sickie

You may find that the other fans won't bother to abuse you, since the West ham fans have pretty much cornered the market in abusing their own club and players.

That imo is what is embarrassing.

But should I still pull a sickie?

jay_in_cpt

My honest view..
We were outplayed and IMO the tactics , if they were told to play so deep was poor.
The players on the pitch in general today must be some of the slowest around..
We gave the ball away so much, I don't know what to say..
AC as much as he tries he also needs the right service and a bit of help up there.
But have to take into account injury issues and a couple of things that were ok, Arnie IMO had his best game and could have grabbed a assist and goal...
Sad to say think Noble is holding us back... But Obiang & Cheikh are both below par this season, so it's tricky IMO ....
While I commend Reid for his wanting to play, perhaps Rice could have started..
Our 4 at the back couldn't cope and full backs struggled with little help , apart from Arnie IMO ..
Cresswell looks a shadow of the player he was...
That's my take, gonna be a hard long season, Mr Moyes, Good Luck ..

PrestonHammer

Distract them with clowns.

Hamstew

PrestonHammer said:

Distract them with clowns.

Should I?

EXETERHAMMER

Well that went well.
It seems clear that we just do not have the players to play a back 4. A lack of pace and proper defensive central midfielder was obvious.
5 at the back with Masuaku and Zabaleta wide will give us a chance. Sakho must start ahead of Carroll too.

Barney

I do hope the owners back Moyes in the transfer window or we are for the drop. a bit more energy today and we did have some good chances but I think Noble has had his time, arnie improved and I think Carolls mind is elsewhere

welovethehammers

Jay - just my take on some of the things you said (agree with most of it) ... :

jay_in_cpt said:

The players on the pitch in general today must be some of the slowest around..

Agreed. We seemed to be chasing shadows in midfield with Obiang Kouyate and Noble. The 3 covered a lot of ground chasing the ball but at the same time very rarely won the ball. The Watford players knocked it about with pace and made them run and stretched them. Noble looked knackered by the end of it and Obiang looked pretty tired too and I'm not surprised as they made those 3 run. Playing Lanzini also meant that there was a large space on the left in front of Cresswell and Lanzini couldn't play "in the whole" as well as covering this left side which resulted in Noble trying to cover a central position as well as the left of midfield position. It was nice when Masuaku came on for many reasons.... #1 he covered that left side which previously was getting "half covered" by Noble and "half covered" by Lanzini #2 Masuaku offered us pace, width, could keep possession and didn't look scared (unlike the rest of our 3 midfielders).

jay_in_cpt said:

We gave the ball away so much, I don't know what to say..

I agree. I think that was due to a mixture of tiredness and lack of confidence. More the latter to be honest. Playing on the break reduces the need to pass the ball about and build it up. If you can't keep the ball well it is mathematically easier to try score with a few passes on the counter attack than a slow gradual build up.

jay_in_cpt said:

AC as much as he tries he also needs the right service and a bit of help up there.

I sort of agree. AC has never been good when he comes deep or when he has his back to goal. This is becausr he is slow, not agile and defenders can read him and pick the ball of him. He is best with his face to goal so he can attack headers more aggressively. If he plays we need the right sort of service to him. When Masuaku came on he got one or two balls into the box. This is ideal for Carroll but he has came off by then. So if Carroll plays we need to play to his strengths. Get it out wide and let Carroll attack it. Allardyce knew how to do this. Very simple but effective. That's why imo we saw the best of Cresswell as it was simple.... good cross in, let AC attack it and do this over and over.

jay_in_cpt said:

Sad to say think Noble is holding us back... But Obiang & Cheikh are both below par this season, so it's tricky IMO ....

Agreed. None of our central midfielders are doing well and that's our main weakness summed up. Out of all our problems that is the biggest one for me. It means we have no spine and teams can walk past us. We need a tall athletic midfielder who is hard to get past but also has the legs to cover a lot of ground and quickly (this should in theory be Kouyate). Noble is the complete opposite of this. Their player Doucore is exactly what we are missing and need.

jay_in_cpt said:

While I commend Reid for his wanting to play, perhaps Rice could have started..
Our 4 at the back couldn't cope and full backs struggled with little help , apart from Arnie IMO ..

I prefer Rice in midfield to defence and imo he should've played there instead of one of our midfielders. I guess it's easier to say that now than before the game, but even so Moyes should've brought on Rice either at half time or very early into the second half. Purely because our midfielders were tiring and we needed fresh legs. Probably for Noble because all of our midfielders were chasing shadows but particularly him imo.

jay_in_cpt said:

Cresswell looks a shadow of the player he was...
That's my take, gonna be a hard long season, Mr Moyes, Good Luck ..

As I said it was hard for Cress as he had no cover on left midfield. Lanzini was sort of covering this area but sort of playing as the central attacking midfielder too. Noble was sort of covering this area but also sort of covering a more central position. However when Masuaku came on we had someone on the left midfield to cover this space. He also attacked well and "attack is the best form of defence" seemed to be true when he came on. I feel those 2 should be playing on the left together regularly. It'll get the best out of both of them. If Masuaku does play here we need someone in the middle to get on the end of his crosses as well as Cresswell's crosses though. As I said previously Cress looked great under Allardyce as his game plan was simple - get Cress time on the ball and in a position to pick out Carroll; ideally giving AC a run at his defender and ensuring he is facing the goal. Use Masuaku to power up that touch line and hopefully simply by attacking on the left it'll help Cress. Use Masuaku similarly to how Antonio plays on the right wing (i.e. Charge up there powerfully and try get the team as far up the pitch as possible).

whupathman

Not surprised at the result, we were poor and lack motivation, I still think Moyes is the wrong man at the wrong time but hope I am wrong. Today was woeful.