Are West Ham too honest on the pitch?

Dodger58

An article on Hammers News questions whether our ‘honest’ approach on the pitch is helping us https://hammers.news/news/david-moyes-admission-is-admirable-but-its-clearly-not-helping-west-ham/. This quotes David Moyes saying “I tell the players to stay on their feet and not go down easily. I like the game to be played correctly. Maybe I am wrong and we should be looking to gain but I want us to be an honest football team and I want us to try and do things correctly. That will not always happen, it obviously won’t but we’ve not been getting penalty kicks that’s for sure. I hope there are a bundle of penalties in the second half of the season.”

Personally I am pleased to see this even if it does, on occasion, appear to cost us. I know this is Professional sport and a results based business, but I still want the club I have supported all my life to be one seen to be playing in the right spirit. The ridiculous position of being one of the very few clubs punished for a dive (Lanzini in his early days) is not a badge of honour, but yet another example of how West Ham are treated differently to others by the football authorities.

What do others think?

Whitehorsehammer

That is a very refreshing comment by Moyes.

BubblesNeverDies

Imagine if Salah, Zaha and Grealish played for us, they would be tearing their hair out that they were told to stay on their feet.

IronHerb

And Noble would be top of the scoring charts with all those pens.  😂

alderz

The title of that article says "it's clearly not helping West Ham". I would argue that 6th place with 15 games to go suggests that whatever we're doing we is working for us.

ianbishoplegend

Yes

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

I think it's incredibly unlucky not to have had a penalty this season, but honestly I can't think of loads of occasions where we've been absolutely robbed, or where a player could have gone down (like Soucek against Liverpool).

I don't subscribe to refereeing conspiracies or coincidence, so I wonder if it's more related to how we play.

We put a lot of crosses in and generally get the ball into the forwards quickly - a lot of crosses flashed across the box. I don't think we do as much running with the ball in the box, or passing it around the box, as other teams do. We're also good at getting shots away rather than looking to beat a man or take extra touches.

I have no stats to back any of this up, and am too lazy to get them.

buffybegood

There was a nailed on one on Soucek a few games ago, he clearly played the ball (actually going away from goal) and was clearly caught by an opponent, it was 100% a penalty, yet nothing given.

OldCastleSwift

Antonio v City was a penalty, IMO. Think it was Dias sliding in and clearly took him out.

There was also the handball v Arsenal.

So with the Soucek incident that's three that we should have had so far this season.

jay_in_cpt

Agree with Jorderz re penalties, Buffy might not!!....fair enough....

But I also cannot remember one obvious / very clear penalty we should 100% have been given, many perhaps possible either way, but IMO not 100% clear cut...

I am fortunate that all matches are shown live on TV ( satelite out here ) and I've not missed one match watching live, and I can't remember one game that I was so angry because we weren't awarded a penalty, that we should most definitely have....IMO.

buffybegood

jay_in_cpt said:

Agree with Jorderz re penalties, Buffy might not!!....fair enough....

But I also cannot remember one obvious / very clear penalty we should 100% have been given, many perhaps possible either way, but IMO not 100% clear cut...

I am fortunate that all matches are shown live on TV ( satelite out here ) and I've not missed one match watching live, and I can't remember one game that I was so angry because we weren't awarded a penalty, that we should most definitely have....IMO.

It was against West Brom, which we won anyway, so you might not have fumed as much as in a game we drew or lost. Definite, 100% penalty, honest 😅😅😅