WEST HAM away to Cardiff. Saturday 3pm KO (UK time)

grey_til_I_dye

OCS

Then I don't get your point.

Do you feel the other managers should not have been given stick (allowing that they were)?

Or that Pelle should be getting the same treatment?

Personally, I'm happy to ignore those who knocked Slav or Moyes, and so not knock Pelle.

thorn

I don't see how you can draw the inference that the players don't want 7th just because we had a bad game.

You didn't draw that inference when we played well.

thornburyiron

I draw the inference because in my opinion if they really wanted 7th place and the possible europa place they’d have played as if they did. From what I saw it looked as if they’d rather be anywhere else than playing out the season.
Pelle was obviously annoyed about how we played today and from our last few away games but once they’re on the pitch it’s down to them. I think Noble makes a good club captain but a mediocre team captain as he never seems to be able to get them going if we start off poorly.

OldCastleSwift

Grey, my point is that I don't think Pellegrini should be immune from criticism. It's early in his reign and he deserves time to put his stamp on the team before he is judged too much, but that doesn't mean he can't be criticised at all.

He's now had as many games as Moyes did, if not more, but hasn't come in for anywhere near as much stick, despite overseeing some terrible performances.

grey_til_I_dye

thorn

By that logic, teams only play badly because they don't fancy it, and/or can't be bothered.

I don't believe that's true.

Presumably, when we played well, you made the inference we did want 7th, then?

Yeoldhammer

They were on the beach lol, even Hernandez was showcasing his diving skills.

Yeoldhammer

and for the umpteenth time we concede early.

thornburyiron

Some of our worst performances have come at a point where a win would close the gap to 7th or 8th but we’ve turned in performances like today.
If you know the reason we put in these bad displays quite often then do tell me because unless it’s the fact they know they’re safe and it’s unlikely they’ll get 7th I’d be interested to know.

ASLEFshrugged

I blame Lawro.

Hammerwombat

I blame Curbs.

claretandbluesky

I think that stat is not really too revealing as these free kicks and penalties are all won from pressing open play, it's surprising but doesn't really mean too much as in the matches the performances have been what achieved the result and pressing performances bring about more set piece situations, and we are capitalising from them. If I were to take something from that stat it would be that Arnie needs return to full stride as he has been playing cameos and not been the player he was before the transfer nonsense. He is our open play scorer as showed last season, and now with Lanzini back I think he should return ahead of Chico.

whupathman

bad day at office, not unexpected from west ham, won't go down, we will be better, but the spuds lost so all is not doom and gloom when i go to work Monday

IronHerb

Funny how no one called out Noble who had shocking game today. I'm not sure he touched the ball in the opening 15 minutes. His time is up imo.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

Noble was no worse than anybody else.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Don't think any of the XI had a good game

Back 5 were very poor, the midfield were non existent and the front 3 didn't do anything of note

Actually think untill Nasri came on we didn't have any composure on the ball, he gave us some drive from midfield

BubblesNeverDies

A question that needs answering is how did we restrict Citeh to just one goal (and a soft penalty at that). Team selection perhaps? Over to you Pelle

vs Citeh
Fabianski
Fredericks
Diop
Ogbonna
Johnson/Zabaleta (63')
Obiang
Rice
Antonio
Nasri/Lanzini (45')
Felipe Anderson/Diangana (76')
Carroll

vs Cardiff
Fabianski
Fredericks
Diop
Ogbonna
Cresswell
Rice
Snodgrass
Noble/Nasri (58')
Lanzini/Antonio (58')
Felipe Anderson/Arnautovic (45')
Hernández

I've highlighted the players who played in both games.

OutcastLondoner

OldCastleSwift said:

Grey, my point is that I don't think Pellegrini should be immune from criticism. It's early in his reign and he deserves time to put his stamp on the team before he is judged too much, but that doesn't mean he can't be criticised at all.

He's now had as many games as Moyes did, if not more, but hasn't come in for anywhere near as much stick, despite overseeing some terrible performances.

I think this argument misses the context. Some success will award you some space.

Bilic was given a lot of space in his first season because we were so good. He got a lot more criticism in his second and even more in this third when the team were delivering worse performances. Pellegrini's bad start brought a ton of criticism and even mumbling about whether he should stay - that's largely forgotten because of how we've mostly been quite good since then.

Moyes got a lot more criticism than either, even though he brought us out of trouble, but there were very few good performances and actually his record wasn't that much better than Bilic's earlier in the season (at least for a lot of his time, from what I remember).

Pellegrini is not getting as much criticism when the team play badly because the team isn't playing badly nearly as often as the others. We're not near to relegation. We're fighting for a Europa place, something we have no automatic right to - especially after the last two seasons. The other two were not criticised because of performances in individual games but because we were doing so badly in general. He has things to fix but it would be insane to then expect Pellegrini to get the same when we're 9th. Until yesterday, the only team that had beaten us since the beginning of February was Man City. We drew against Liverpool. It wasn't an amazing run but it was not at all bad.

jay_in_cpt

With the fixtures we have left, if we perform like we did yesterday, IMO we will finish closer to 17th than 7th, I hope I'm wrong, just like how wrong a performance it was yesterday.
There are too many players who did nothing, that is more like the West Ham i know..

How Chicarito still was playing after HT regardless of Anderson's injury is beyond me, Antonio even with his wild finishing did more than him so I critisce Pelle for that, he should have seen what everyone else did..

We have IMO rode our luck with some of our recent wins, like the opposition missing many good chances, as I say, I hope I'm wrong but the next 8 games IMO are gonna be tough going and nothing less than 3 points against Huddersfield will be acceptable otherwise the 18th place team will slowly be catching our points tally up.

ASLEFshrugged

IronHerb said:

Funny how no one called out Noble who had shocking game today. I'm not sure he touched the ball in the opening 15 minutes. His time is up imo.

Three touches in the first 15 minutes according to whoscored.com.

Back in January Wally Downes said

We knew it was important to stop Mark Noble getting the ball because he can pick anyone out. When he got on the ball it was important to stop that.

Looks like Colin took his old sparring partner's advice.

Time up?

alderz

I don't understand why every time we play badly there is someone saying Noble's time is up, but when we play well he is involved in almost everything we do. He seems to get singled out when we play badly as if he's some relic of the past. Personally, I think he's very worthy of being in our team as it stands. Could we upgrade? Yes. Do I think he's past it? No.

Barney

I dont think Nobles time is up but he will become more of a squad player. I question his role as captain on the pitch because he has to take charge when the chips are down and I dont see him doing it

Lukerz

It was almost an identical game to Burnley. A team who were in poor form, in desperate need of 3 points, we were in good form, but were completely outplayed.

Some of that defending was disastrous. It has happened time & time again this season away from home.

ASLEFshrugged

Burnley had been in poor form because they had Hart in goal, our trip coincided with Tom Heaton's return and they went eight games unbeaten in the League with him in goal.

jay_in_cpt

Aslef, i agree re that, but even with Hart they would have had a "well deserved " win, that game was another away horror show from us.

OutcastLondoner

I think we've tried to replace Noble/give him competition several times in the past few years and no one's yet managed to permanently displace him.

OldCastleSwift

OutcastLondoner said:

I think we've tried to replace Noble/give him competition several times in the past few years and no one's yet managed to permanently displace him.

Wilshere being the latest. And he probably would have if he wasn't made of glass.

For me, Noble is the very epitome of West Ham. He blows hot and cold and can flip-flop between very good and abject from one game to the next.

We do need an upgrade on Noble in the summer. Rice is our No1 midfielder now and we need someone to compliment him; someone that can bring the forward at pace and play the killer pass.

Yeoldhammer

;kanye


Noble wasn't the problem yesterday, Cresswell and Fredericks were useless first half.
Rice probably had his worst game for us
Anderson was invisible
Lanzini wasn't up to scratch

Hernandez trying to cheat and con again. Needs benching.

Yeoldhammer

The mentality at West Ham is diabolical "think like a big team" is what Pelle wants us to be. Yet we approach any game outside the top 6 as if it was a training ground exercise. Our last several games have had the exact same thing happen of conceding early. Thats not coincidence. The players are simply not approaching the game in the right frame of mind from the kick off.

thornburyiron

Rice said afterwards “we need to put the stuff we work on in training into action”. Isn’t that the main if not sole purpose of training. If not then they may as well stay home and watch tv during the week and then just turn up for games.
Sunday pub teams just turn up for matches but professional footballers shouldn’t.

steve

;hmm just because I had a few before my pub game does not mean I did not turn up ,a bit late maybe but always got there in time for the half time pint ;whistle

ASLEFshrugged

On the plus side when Colin got relegated with Sheff Utd they beat us at Bramall Lane.