Liverpool v West Ham , Saturday 31st October , 5.30

Fortuneseeker

Mrs G, I don't honestly know if I did I wouldn't be so concerned. Haller appears to acting like a typical "Le Sulk" but we need to try to play to his strengths otherwise it will be a total waste. I reckon we all know players who show minimum effort but still manage to score goals may be he fits into that category? Whether that is right is open to debate.

Barney

I would not play Haller after that performance. i only remember him winning on header, work rate was awful; rarely challenged and looked like he is on his way out......and so he should be. lets use Yarmo up top for a couple of games.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

What is his strength though?

Because he lost pretty much every aerial battle

And when it was played into his chest feet he miscontrolled the pass, or passed it to a Liverpool player

Haller needs to be spoon fed to be of any use

I expected very little from him, but he still disappointed me, genuinely didn't look like he wanted to be there....didn't even know where the ball half the time

Fortuneseeker

Is the West Ham way to buy a highly rated striker, from his exploits in Germany & the Europa League, & not get a tune out of them? It’s really disappointing.

EXETERHAMMER

Haller clearly needs to play as part of a front pair and not on his own. Watching him today, he looked slow, disinterested and dare I say it, carrying too much timber. Benrahma or Silva up front next game.

OldCastleSwift

EXETERHAMMER said:

Haller clearly needs to play as part of a front pair and not on his own. Watching him today, he looked slow, disinterested and dare I say it, carrying too much timber. Benrahma or Silva up front next game.

Silva's on loan in Greece, and Odubeko, probably next in line from the U23s, is injured, so we have very little in terms of options.

Got to give Haller a chance against poor opposition. No excuses for not getting Soucek, Bowen and Fornals/Benrahma close to him when we play Fulham. If he doesn't take his chance, Moyes has an international break to work out a Plan B.

EXETERHAMMER

Sorry, forgot about Silva on loan.
We look so much more secure with a back 5 and Antonio. I just don't think Haller is suited to the formation.

whupathman

Not a disaster, hard set of games 8 points and not thrashings

OldCastleSwift

EXETERHAMMER said:

Sorry, forgot about Silva on loan.
We look so much more secure with a back 5 and Antonio. I just don't think Haller is suited to the formation.

Agree with that. If this is Moyes’s formation going forward, then Haller doesn't fit it, IMO. We need to find an Antonio Mk2, and if that means cashing in on Haller, then I'm ok with it.

Lukerz

Another encouraging performance but jeez Liverpool will be laughing how they managed to get three points out of that. I felt the penalty was a penalty but the way Salah went over was ridiculous. Just annoying Masuaku went over & had a nibble. Liverpool offered very little throughout the game & didn’t really ever look like scoring.

7 tough games now over. Shame we didn’t beat Newcastle but other than that, very happy with what I have seen. Let’s hope we can get 3 points against Fulham but we need to find a way to get Haller working in our formation.

OutcastLondoner

Haller was poor today. He’s not a lone striker so it was always going to be tough when we had to sit deep but he does need to do more to hold it so that others can join him. When Coufal put in a nice cross for him early and he got into a good position (but it was blocked by Phillips) I thought it might work out. Hopefully next week we can attack more and actually get other players close to him. Play more as an attacking three basically than a one.

I actually disagree that Yarmolenko did any more than him. Yes he was energetic and trying to make things happen and that’s great. But he did those things in the wrong areas. It looked to me like he was getting into Bowen’s space a bit. So I’m not sure he’s the answer unless we’re able to make it more fluid and have Yarmolenko and Bowen exchanging positions.

alderz

Haller’s had how many minutes this season? And people seem to be expecting him to be anything like sharp? If he’s done nothing when Antonio is back then fair enough I’ll say he’s done. But against the best team in the league when he’s not played in weeks isn’t the best time to judge him

Cuz1

If moyes doesn’t rate haller he should have tried to change it during the window, it’s not rocket science to know Antonio would miss games it’s not hindsight a few on here already posted about his injury record, you can’t give haller the odd 3 minutes here and there at the end wait for Antonio injury then put him up top and expect him to play the lone striker

Lukerz

It’s gonna be interesting to see how Moyes sets us up now during the next few games.

The 5-4-1 system has worked in these 6 games against last seasons top 7, but next is Fulham, where we are potentially going to be playing 5 defenders, 3 midfielders, a winger & a striker.

We’re going to have a lot more of the ball (well we should be aiming to have a lot more of the ball) & this is going to make the formation more restrictive. Wonder if Moyes will 1) change it or 2) change the personnel in it. He could bring in Benrahma for Fornals & have a more aggressive front three. Harsh on Fornals, but we now need to start picking up wins if we are to have a much better season than the last one.

Man City & Liverpool was about battling away. We could have easily lost both 2-1 or drawn both, yet we still managed to lead in both games. I thought we played much better against Spurs than 3-0 down suggested & we were excellent against Wolves & Leicester. Fulham will be very different as they are going to be by far the worst team we have played & the onus will be on us to beat them, not stay in the game & be clinical.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Agree Lukerz

Wouldnt surprise me to see Moyes mix it up a bit

What i would find encouraging is that at 3-0 down to Spurs, we were very much on the front foot, and this formation worked well

So don't think this formation is exclusive to countering bigger/better teams, just it works better that way

whupathman

Not a disaster, hard set of games 8 points and not thrashings

claretandbluesky

His problem is what we all recognised in that he has just paid 25m for Benrahma but where does he put him, whilst what he really needs is an attacker.

I think he either plays someone alongside Haller or maybe give Yamalenko a chance as he can certainly finish, but like Haller there is no speed.

Brother_Sledge

I believe the loss means I now stand down from starting the match threads
P5 W2 D2 L1

IronHerb

👏👏👏

ianbishoplegend

claretandbluesky said:

His problem is what we all recognised in that he has just paid 25m for Benrahma but where does he put him, whilst what he really needs is an attacker.

I think he either plays someone alongside Haller or maybe give Yamalenko a chance as he can certainly finish, but like Haller there is no speed.

Yarma can run with the ball at his feet at a fair speed though. He can also change direction well. He buys more time on the ball than Haller for an attack to start.

Yeoldhammer

have to make this good start count against these next few teams we face.

jay_in_cpt

Brother_Sledge said:

I believe the loss means I now stand down from starting the match threads
P5 W2 D2 L1

Considering who we faced I personally think you deserve at least the next game to carry on the good results..

thornburyiron

I’m more worried about the next few games than the last. I never expected much if anything from the last six games and have been pleasantly surprised. Our next two opponents are winless thus far and those sort of games in the past have been a nightmare for us.
Let’s hope those days are past.

Pearces_Left_Foot

https://www.football365.com/news/premier-league-winners-losers-solskjaer

A few interesting points on Haller

Ace of Clubs

Is this really the player we paid £45mil for?

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

He defintely has talent

Most surprising watching that videos is that he was referred to as a "challenge machine"

Haven't seen him win hardly any challenges, and he loses most of his aerial duels

Think we will see him against Fulham, but he really does need to start improving as he looks a shadow of the player that was in that video

BubblesNeverDies

I actually feel sorry for him. It must be depressing to be thinking that he's wasted 1½ years of his career at West Ham.
He's come from a successful career with Frankfurt, scoring goals for fun, confident and looking forward to be able to prove himself in the PL.
MP bought him on the basis of his performances with Franfurt even though that was dependent on playing in the system that they employed there.
He's now being played in a different system and yet is expected to achieve the same kind of success.
However, I don't think he's helping his cause as he's not getting involved as much as can be seen in these clips.

Either Moyes keeps the system that works with Antonio (which is risky given his injury record unless Moyes can find a similar striker in the mould of MA) or he changes the system to get the best out of Haller.
This assumes of course that Moyes believes that there is a future for Haller here.

BubblesNeverDies

I saw this on KUMB:

PlaistowIron wrote: ↑Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:02 am
The frustrating thing is Salah plants both feet back on the turf after the slight contact, then proceeds to throw himself on the floor.

Away against Arsenal, the same happens to Bowen who doesn’t get a chance to plant his feet after a genuine trip and we of course get nothing.

Commentary for Salah - There’s contact, only slight, but as there’s contact, it’s a penalty

Commentary for Bowen - There’s contact, but not enough to give a penalty?

Which proves that not only are the officials biased but so are the commentators.

thornburyiron

You’ve only just realised that?

ianbishoplegend

The commentary I listened too was so biased. The icing in the cake was the hysteria after Salah scored the pen - they just love a game that fits their narrative.