Home to the barcodes ....... Saturday 2nd November, 15:00

baracks_a_hammer

Now whilst we don’t know the ins and outs, I believe Micheal Vorm left Spurs at the end of his contract as he didn’t want to be 3rd choice behind gazzaniga

Even at his age we’d have been better off trying to get him in the summer to be our back up to fab

horshamhammer

Hamstew said:

Yes why have Fredericks and Ogbonna been dropped? And why on earth would a professional manager play an aging slow Zab against that player of theirs. I think the manager has actually lost his marbles.

I agree. It seems to me that after the Everton debacle Pellegrini looked at the team and made completely the wrong decisions about who was most culpable.

ASLEFshrugged

Vorm rejoined Spurs a couple of weeks ago on a season-long contract. He'll probably be on the bench tomorrow.

Cuz1

Martin makes roberto look like a worldie

claretandbluesky

The most valid criticism of Pelle for me is that we have been beaten twice and drawn at home in the last three matches to sides who have very few players we would want in our side (Zaha aside obviously) Palace, blunts and Toon have few stars but their managers have got them to better us and getting the best from what you have is the managers job. There are three sides clearly under performing regard this in my view and they are Man Utd, Everton and ourselves.

ASLEFshrugged

claretandbluesky said:

There are three sides clearly under performing regard this in my view and they are Man Utd, Everton and ourselves.

You've obviously not been around Spurs and Arsenal fans who seem to think they're underperforming.

Everton v Spurs tomorrow is going to be a huge game although Silva is under less pressure than Poch. The Willy will be fun tomorrow, Twinny the mad Toffee is more entertainment than watching the footie and every one who isn't a Spuds fans hoping that Everton win just to watch him go ballistic.

He's such a Toffee he named his rescue Jack Russel cross "Dixie".

jay_in_cpt

OutcastLondoner said:

Lukerz said:

You would seriously consider recalling Trott at this rate.

I also think a younger keeper next summer with the view to succeeding Fabianski is a priority. We need to spend some money on an up & coming keeper, or bring Trott onto the bench.

I assumed Dave Martin was a young keeper when we signed him :doh: This would be the perfect position for an up and coming keeper to step into. Though Fabianski's going to be ahead of them, he's 34 and so they're not stuck behind a player with endless years in front of them.

If he isn't good enough to play now we might as well cancel his contract. I think Roberto is our worst signing for a long time, I think. The only saves he makes are quick reactions to shots taken from near him.

Outcast, re your comment about you think Roberto is our worst signing for a long time, you meant since the start of last season !..IMO on par with another Pelle masterclass signing one of the worst Midfielders I have ever seen ( when playing for Villa ) step forward Mr Carlos Sanchez, a waste of space & money.

heathrowhammer

It was bad yesterday!! And theLast 4 games
We are to easy to play against. "Ponderous, passive, pathetic" it was frustrating to watch.
I see no energy or passion in our play. Some of the players look unhappy on the pitch. They seem uninspired, Teams are bullying us.
Oh and Roberto needs support from crowd. I know he is not very good atm, but getting on his back will not help the cause.

Brother_Sledge

Agree with pretty much all of the negative about yesterdays performance but have to stand up for Anderson he bust a gut chasing back- the only one who got near Saint Maximim when he broke clear twice.

Huttonhammer

To me it seems that most players that play for West Ham after a while they seem to lose their passion and desire. There is no passion or spirit in this side and it is that way for most games every season. Teams who are not on paper as good as us turn us over because they show a passion and desire. When I watch us play I feel
that in most games the players don’t care or have any desire to win for the supporters or club at all. It has been that way for a long time and is what irks me the most about the club and manager..

Lukerz

The problem is that we all said last season a CM was a priority. We are still playing with the same midfield we had last season. There is no dynamic midfielder. They are all ponderous. Equally, the decision to sell Hernandez, Perez & Arnie means we have sold off the best part of 25-30 goals from last season.

I would say we maybe need to go back to a side that is attacking & try to play to our strengths.

Roberto
Fredericks - Balbuena - Diop - Masuaku
Rice - Snodgrass/Noble
Yarmolenko - Lanzini/Fornals - Anderson
Haller

That is the best we can offer a the moment. Fabianski & Antonio are massive losses at the moment. We took 9 points off of Palace (h), Everton (a) & Newcastle (h) last season. Nothing this year.

Pelle has to stop chopping & changing the side, especially at the back. Not sure what Fredericks & Ogbonna have done wrong to be dropped. I do prefer Balbuena & Diop but Ogbonna has been solid this season. Time & a place to drop him.

We are not as good as maybe we all thought a couple of months ago. We sit here thinking that we are better than Palace, Everton, Sheff U & Newcastle but the reality is we aren’t. Zabaleta & Cresswell being selected yesterday to face that Newcastle attack was ridiculous. We need the pace of our full-backs. Fredericks & Masuaku should always be in the 18 as a bare minimum. Get Zabaleta out the squad & include Masuaku. He signed a long term deal not long ago. The club must see him as the future.

Burnley is now massive because we lost there last season so a win would claw back one of the recent disappointments. If we lose that Pelle is going to be looking at the sack come Xmas. After 18 months of revamping the squad, that is not what we want.

imagelost

That’s Alvin Martin son
The goalkeeper?

imagelost

imagelost

OldCastleSwift

Can't disagree with any of that Lukerz.

The frailty of our squad has been highlighted by the injuries to Fab, Antonio and, to a lesser extent, Wilshere. A good number of people on here and other sites recognised the risk, but it seems the management and/or owners didn't (or did but decided not to address it). Either way, it's not a good look for them.

This is already feeling a bit like when Bilic started to lose it, and I can't see Pellegrini pulling it back. In the fastest league in the world, the fact that Fredericks is benched and Masuaku isn't even in the squad means I can't help but doubt the manager's thinking. Burnley are one of the worst opponents we could be facing next, because they're built on effort and hard work and will walk right over us. I think we could be looking at a four goal trouncing.

baracks_a_hammer

Burnley is not the ideal next opponent because they themselves have just had a horror show. Whenever this happens to the them, dyche gets stuck into his squad and usually gets a reaction. We are a good team for him to be facing next

Hamstew

Ex on twitter said the other day that the club are looking to add a CB and Striker as main priorities in Jan.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Need a dynamic CM, like we did in the summer

I thought Fornals would've been a good signing, but so far it hasnt worked out and it's looking like weve wasted a large part of our budget from this season

There is no pace ot energy in the side, and he goes and benches Frederick's.....

Zabaleta and Creswell are probably the slowest starting full backs in the league, also I doubt there is a midfield pairing as slow as Rice / Noble

Even Yarmolenko and Snodgrass, two of our better performers of late lack the pace

Antonio is crude but he gave us an outlet when it's not working, and we could go long if we had to or play it into him and watch him go 1 vs 1 against the full back

It's too pedestrian

Diangana would've given us an outlet, but hes still only a young lad we couldn't just put all the pressure on him

Hamstew

If only we had some young energetic players at the club :doh:

Lukerz

Yarmolenko, to be fair, I have never got the hype about. I think he has a wonderful left foot that will see him get a few goals a season but overall he is very clumsy, slow & hesitant when he gets the ball. He doesn’t beat players for a wide man which is why I think he should be utilised as an emergency striker, playing off of Haller in a more central role.

Lukerz

The sooner Reid is available the better.

He’ll walk into this back four at the moment on crutches.

Cuz1

I don’t get the Reid love in been out for too long imo

Hamstew

Lukerz said:

The sooner Reid is available the better.

He’ll walk into this back four at the moment on crutches.

I agree but tbf I still dont understand what Ogbonna has done to be dropped.

I know it's easy to say chuck the youth in but I'd much rather see Holland instead of Anderson and Grady (I know we can't at this moment in time) instead of Yarmo. At the very least they'd looked bothered.

And surprise surprise we've had another "we must be better" statement from one of the players.

baracks_a_hammer

Last season papered over a lot of cracks - all positive right at the very end with a few wins however some of these were against sides who had their eyes on other prizes. We had little to play for as we had blown the chance of europe. It’s not the same putting in a few decent performances when the pressure is off. Add to that the fact that fab was one of our players of the season. That is pretty telling about how we were defensively. At best it was a c minus season for us.

Apart from some of the crass decisions (letting go of all our forwards and not signing a Cm when everyone knows the shortfalls with Sanchez and wilshere), there is still more than enough quality for us to be doing far better than we are. The are plenty of managers IMO out there who could get a lot more out of this squad.

So sorry, but for me the finger very much still points at Pelle for the position we are in.

thornburyiron

Read a few reports this morning and pretty well every one of them called us pathetic, useless or woeful and in at least one of them all three.
They all said our lack of passion and willingness to attack is a disgrace and quoted one instance of when Rice got near their area but played the ball back into our half.
Opponents know that if they play with any intensity for the first 5 or 10 minutes then we’re stuffed and don’t have the stomach for it.
It’s worrying when Pelle says he has no idea why we play so badly.

Whitehorsehammer

I was at the game yesterday. I have not read any of the comments on here yet, have a pretty good idea what a lot of them will be saying. These are my thoughts after the game.
We badly miss Fabianski, I don't think we would have conceded the 2nd or 3rd goal if he is playing = 2-1 win
Mark Noble had a very poor half.
Declan Rice had a nightmare of a game.
Anderson had more of the ball than anyone else but could not find the final ball.
Fredericks should have started, Leaving Zabaleta up against one of the quickest players in the league was a poor idea.
Good players do not become bad players in just a few weeks, they need to have a long hard talk and come out fighting and playing in the next game.

Hamstew

I'm more into seeing how the u23s are doing at the moment. They are playing again today.

OldCastleSwift

Whitehorsehammer said:

Declan Rice had a nightmare of a game.

Rice's form has really dropped since he got hammered playing for England, but you know what, because of our dreadful planning in the summer we can't really afford to drop him, because even out of form he's better than Carlos Sanchez.

Lukerz

What worries me is presumably Pellegrini wanted us to start with a back four of Fredericks, Balbuena, Diop & Masuaku (this ended last season with victories & clean sheets), yet he abandoned this from the off.

We have not started with that back four once this season, & after the first game he made changes to the centre of the back four. He then dropped Ogbonna (the best of them all) for Balbuena, & has reverted to the trusted heads of Zabaleta & Cresswell over the more attacking potential of Masuaku & Fredericks. Add to that having to replace the best GK in the division, it’s a ridiculous amount of changes.

In short he has already given up on the back four he was trying to mould into place based on, what I can see is, one poor game (Everton).

We beat Watford, Norwich & got a draw at Villa & Brighton, conceding 2 goals in those four games, with Masuaku & Fredericks as our full-backs. Yes we had a really poor team performance at Everton but the back four was probably the best part of the side that day. Masuaku didn’t play against Palace, Sheff Utd or yesterday. Fredericks the last two games. In fact, the most we have conceded in a game with Masuaku & Fredericks as our full-backs is two (once this season). It was a big mistake leaving Masuaku out of the side after he returned from his ban. He should have been in but was omitted due to Cresswell scoring against United & Masuaku playing in that 4-0 debacle at Oxford. Masuaku has played five games this season, with one defeat.

Just seems to me Pelle is giving off the impression he doesn’t know what he is doing. He didn’t sign full-backs so he must be happy with Fredericks & Masuaku. Yet he clearly isn’t if he feels Cresswell & Zabaleta are better options.

ASLEFshrugged

baracks_a_hammer said:

The are plenty of managers IMO out there who could get a lot more out of this squad.

The only ones I can think of are probably happier staying where they are.

Who's available? Morninho? Mark Hughes? Chris Hughton? Tony Pulis?