West Ham v Man U (A) - Sunday 14 March

baracks_a_hammer

Gosh OCS, I just can’t agree with that

We are a club which is generally starved of success and doesn’t really come close to winning even a domestic cup. By whatever circumstance we find ourselves in with a shot of eating at the top table. There should be no thoughts of the “what if kind” for next season IMO - we have less than a dozen games - we should be going all out with our strongest side and trying out utmost to win them all.

Fortuneseeker

OCS, I reckon DM wants Europe as he understands that without it it’s likely we will lose a few of our best players. I seriously doubt we can wait until GSB leave to qualify and Wolves have sold Jota and had Jimenez injured so that will have hindered them this season. Europe hasn’t affected Leicester so far this campaign has it?

Pengeman

Disappointed to lose this game. We showed no ambition for the first-hour and the team was set-up to frustrate MANU in the hope that we would somehow nick a goal on the break or through a set-piece.
I am also sympathetic to Moyes as we have a very thin squad. If he played Benrahama/Lanzini from the start, we would hardly have any decent players to call from the bench to change the game or keep momentum. Moyes could have changed the team at half-time as we rode out luck, but it wasn't to be. This is second poor game Johnson had against MANU. He does not look like a LWB.
I do hope that we don't see the starting line-up again against a to-half team.

OutcastLondoner

Moyes has ruined my match thread streak before it could even get started.

Clactonite

Clactonite said:

I’m trying to work out how I can discreetly watch the game when I said I’d do whatever my wife wants to do for Mother’s Day 😕

I had to watch The Crown instead of the match, by the comments it sounds like I was the lucky one!

OldCastleSwift

baracks_a_hammer said:

We are a club which is generally starved of success and doesn’t really come close to winning even a domestic cup. By whatever circumstance we find ourselves in with a shot of eating at the top table. There should be no thoughts of the “what if kind” for next season IMO - we have less than a dozen games - we should be going all out with our strongest side and trying out utmost to win them all.

I completely agree. But then why did Moyes do what he did tonight and in the cup? I'm not saying he's throwing the games, obviously, but does he think Europe is a step too far for now and we need a couple of seasons for a decent run up?

That's a rhetorical question of course, but I'm struggling to understand his attitude towards the game tonight. Such a big chance to create a gap between us and a few competitors, and he blew it.

Fortuneseeker said:

OCS, I reckon DM wants Europe as he understands that without it it’s likely we will lose a few of our best players. I seriously doubt we can wait until GSB leave to qualify and Wolves have sold Jota and had Jimenez injured so that will have hindered them this season. Europe hasn’t affected Leicester so far this campaign has it?

Good points Fortune, particularly about keeping Rice and Soucek at the club. Leicester have done well but their squad is properly invested in; they have decent options throughout and are pretty well equipped to deal with playing in Europe. I have no faith in our board matching that level of investment.

yoyo

Moyes " I'm not happy we lost. I thought we had a chance to come here and put on a show" ......... really? With that starting line up? Well, he certainly fooled me

thornburyiron

We’ve lost 50% of games played against teams above us in the league when we played them.

thornburyiron

Stat from BBC, it’s 8 years or so since we’ve had as many as 7 shots without one being on target.

Slacker

Well that was a proper Groundhog Day performance.Again the result looked inevitable after about ten minutes. Very,very disappointing.

IronHerb

thornburyiron said:

We’ve lost 50% of games played against teams above us in the league when we played them.

I'm not sure what that means. We've lost twice to Liverpool and Man U, and once to City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle.

thornburyiron

According to the BBC West Ham have lost 50% of their 12 Premier League games this season against sides starting the day above them in the league (W4, D2, L6), compared to just 7% of their other 15 matches (W10, D4, L1).

puddleglumhammers

Fanny about playing 5 3 1 1 with no hope of passing or counter-attacking, then switch to 4 2 3 1 and we play composed, attacking football for a while. This is not rocket science, Mr Moyes. We want and expect to compete, not defend all day long and hope something might happen. Dire and drab tactics led to a dire and drab performance for 60 minutes. Welcome back to our starting 11, Mr Lingard and bye bye Mr Noble.

Fortuneseeker

yoyo, the key clarification there is he didn’t stipulate what type of “show”!

jay_in_cpt

Actually thought Johnson did better last night than in his previous appearances ( 1st half ) anyway....
Poor set up, but look, this stage last season we were in a relegation dogfight 🐶
Moyes got it wrong, but perhaps like me , he is not totally still convinced about Benrahma to start a game V a top 4 team...
And while some may think Benrahma should have started, compared to Bowen’s first matches for us he can’t even be put in the same bracket IMO, albeit Bowen’s form of late has wandered....
Will let Moyes off for this game tho as his options were pretty limited ( Fornals / Lingard) missing ⚒️⚒️⚒️

baracks_a_hammer

I’m just pretty seething again this morning. Don’t get me wrong, when Man Utd’s attack click they are devastating and it’s hard for a side like us to prevail when they are in this mood. However we have had six halves of football against them this season and for over five of these halves Man Utd have been anything but. We have ended up with three defeats. Moyes has had a few good looks and hasn’t learned. We were losing that game before a ball had been kicked. Moyes has done well many times this season but yesterday was on his part, frankly inept.

And as if Noble’s inclusion wasn’t baffling enough why on Earth was he also captain when in that role Rice was building up such great momentum with that role.

Slacker

I can understand to an extent that kind of mentality against Man. City because they can destroy you but United are not City, they’re a decent side who play some good football but so are we this season. So to go there with that mind set just seems so defeatist to me.As Gary Neville said “I expected so much more from West Ham given how well they’ve performed this season “.
If I’d paid money to get there and to buy a ticket...............
It was an awful and embarrassing performance when we had a really good chance to show what we can do.
As others have said Moyes must take a lot of praise for what’s happened this season but the two performances at OT were like the West Ham of last season and many before.

Dodger58

thornburyiron said:

According to the BBC West Ham have lost 50% of their 12 Premier League games this season against sides starting the day above them in the league (W4, D2, L6), compared to just 7% of their other 15 matches (W10, D4, L1).

I actually like this stat. Alright our displays against Man U have been very annoying and disappointing because of the lack of ambition, but for most of my supporting life we have had the odd success against the top sides and usually ended up on the wrong side of results against those around and below us. So let's look on the bright side, W10, D4, L1 against teams lower than us is excellent.

thornburyiron

Moyes himself said they started 5-4-1 and then changed to 4-5-1 at half time and admitted the way they set up wasn’t working.
I think as soon as you play Noble it’s not going to work as Rice and Soucek don’t have the same combination as Noble effectively gets in the way.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with last night.....was overly conservative and all of us saw it coming....was arguably the most disappointing I've been this season as the 2nd half showed us the 'new west ham' we've seen

But that was the worst performance we've had in a long time (ok Spurs wasn't great but we got the 3 points)

Seems to just be against United that Moyes panics....I think its a mentality thing with him....Hes not the first manager to make decisions that polarise the fanbase

He has an issue against the top teams....and given his age/experience it seems a pretty significant chip on his shoulder he can't remove

No issue with a back 5, but Noble starting was just a disaster....not because Noble is bad (he's really not and wasn't dire last night) but just throws the whole team balance off......can't set up to counter with no pace

Fortuneseeker

An unapologetic Moyes has hit back at criticism of his tactics, though, and warned West Ham not to get too greedy. “We’re getting greedy now because we’re enjoying being up high in the table and winning, which we haven’t had very often, so we don’t feel good tonight.”

What is this all about then?

Giant_Hammer

Sorry, that’s just nonsense. It’s not greedy to go about a match with a positive attitude. It’s not greedy to expect to get something out of a match. Can you imagine Pep saying to his players ok lads I know we’ve had a good season but lay off this one. Don’t want to be greedy.

OutcastLondoner

Being upset about the loss would be being greedy. Being upset about the approach to the game isn’t. I’d be happier if we’d lost by 2 or 3.

I don’t think he drops Lingard if he’s available for that game, so why not play Benrahma? I don’t buy the idea that he’s not reliable either. He’s tracked back well in lots of games and I don’t remember too much defensive work from Lingard.

Slacker

Fortuneseeker said:

An unapologetic Moyes has hit back at criticism of his tactics, though, and warned West Ham not to get too greedy. “We’re getting greedy now because we’re enjoying being up high in the table and winning, which we haven’t had very often, so we don’t feel good tonight.”

What is this all about then?

I’m not being greedy, I’ve seen enough of West Ham over many many years to be thoroughly enjoying this season. Last night he had a chance to show his West Ham off to the country and bottled it.

Dodger58

To be fair, I think that is aimed at the Fans being too greedy, to me the important bit is "so we don’t feel good tonight" - which I interpret that the team is not happy because they know they underperformed - NB the 'Team" definitely includes Moyes ;-)

OldCastleSwift

OutcastLondoner said:

I don’t think he drops Lingard if he’s available for that game, so why not play Benrahma? I don’t buy the idea that he’s not reliable either. He’s tracked back well in lots of games and I don’t remember too much defensive work from Lingard.

This is the issue for me. Like I said yesterday, Moyes is hamstrung before a ball is kicked by having such a small and unbalanced squad, but Benrahma for Lingard was the obvious change. Mrs G mentioned about how quick a lot of the Man U players are, and for that reason alone Benrahma over Noble would have made sense, but given he can carry the ball forward and create chances in a way that none of our other available players can, he really should have started for me.

jay_in_cpt

While I wasn’t over chuffed with the selection I see it differently, Fornals didn’t play , so Noble replaced him ( more defensive like Fornals in general) ... IMO if Benrahma should have started then it surely would have been at the expense of Bowen ( more like for like) just my opinion and no I didn’t want Noble to start the game...

alderz

I think, for me, a back five and three holding midfielders is overkill. Bringing Johnson in is fine by me, but then I don’t see why Noble came in too.

Fab; Coufal Diop Dawson Cresswell Johnson; Soucek Rice; Bowen Antonio Benrahma

OR

Fab; Coufal Diop Dawson Cresswell; Soucek Noble Rice; Bowen Antonio Benrahma

Are both much better balanced aides that give both attacking and defensive strength

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Agree Alderz

You can either go 343, with benrahma or lanzini in for Noble to make up the front 3

Or you go 433, with Noble sitting alongside Rice Soucek but you bring in Lanzini/Benrahma for Johnson

Back 5 with 3 holding midfielders doesn't work

Always remember how poor Noble - Obiang - Kouyate was

All 3 were good player but together there is no balance

Fortuneseeker

Dodger58 said:

To be fair, I think that is aimed at the Fans being too greedy, to me the important bit is "so we don’t feel good tonight" - which I interpret that the team is not happy because they know they underperformed - NB the 'Team" definitely includes Moyes ;-)

When you have been feeling hungry for decades, eating scraps from the leftovers, it isn't too surprising you are going to be keen to eat off the top table when the opportunity becomes available.