Liverpool (A) Carabao Cup Weds 20th Dec 8pm live on Sky

MIAHammer

West Ham couldn't be worse if David Moyes told them to go out and lose this game.
- Shaka Hislop

Pengeman

Poor game. Embarrassing to watch and we let in five goal again. No energy, no urgency, no plan, no clue and couldn't string three passes together. Liverpool players were just strolling through with no challenges or pressing. Can't see why Ogbonna keeps being selected. He can't run and Salah easily outpaced him.

Why did Moyes not make substitutions at half-time. Why bring Ings on?

MrsGrey

alderz said:

steve said:

if we are going to loose 5-1 without really giving it a go then play all the kids at lest then i wont feel this bad .Even if the kids lost 10-1 .still would not feel this bad or lets say i am just sad

I think it would be way worse to do that to the kids, tbh. I think the team selection was disappointing, but honestly the selection was only part of the problem. Almost all of them put in some of their worst performances in my memory, and they should be better than that.

Remember when Sam Allardyce fielded a kids team against Man City...

Lukerz

Moyes doesn’t have to go. But it would be nice for him to admit that he wasn’t bothered about this.

thornburyiron

In my 70 odd years of being a Hammer I’ve seen some really abysmal displays eg 8-2 at home to Blackburn, 4-0 cup at Blackpool, 6-0 league cup at Oldham, 6-0 league cup at City and dozens of others. Only saving grace is that most of them were before global television and only those of us unfortunate to be at the games witnessed them.
Tonight they didn’t even go through the motions and I really can’t see how they can walk off that pitch and believe they gave it their all but were beaten by the better team.

chicagohammer

I never mind losing if I feel we gave them a game, competed and put in a shift but that was not the case today.

I think that the fact that our season is such good shape, is why I think that it hurts the most, I agree that the league position is the prime denominator for a manger to be deemed successful or not but right now………

We are safe in the league, comfortable in eighth, we are in the last 16 of the Europa gig and our next euro game is some way off so surely……..

This was a great opportunity to really go for a positive result and get into a SEMI FINAL and we showed nothing to make me think that we were even interested.

Liverpool are a good side but we made it soooo easy for them, I feel for the fans who made the trip up there.

Ho hum

Lukerz

It’s simple, 5-0 to Fulham & 5-1 to Liverpool in the last two away games, with this squad, isn’t good enough. I was happy to say that Fulham was an unusual blip.

epsom_bubbles

Moyes should personally refund all the travelling supporters

MIAHammer

Most of the post-match TV discussion from Craig Burley and Shaka Hislop is why Moyes didn't put out his strongest team for this game. They are as baffled as we are.

EXETERHAMMER

Jusy dire from top to bottom.

steve

Perhaps they all played ill again .i know i am feeling a bit sick

Slacker

No words for that performance.
Ok maybe one - embarrassing.

steve

Shocking is anyone

Lukerz

It’s also a shame that after a strong start to the season, Soucek has declined again over the last few games.

ScotHammer

On the positive side, Moyes may finally realise that people need to play occasionally to keep up their sharpness. He may realise you don’t keep “strength in depth” if people sit on the bench for months.
That said, a number of the squad may have played themselves out of the club tonight.

Bazshuayi

The fact is that even though Liverpool did not put their strongest available side out, players like Jones and Elliot are very good. They'd comfortably be first choices in most other Prem teams and at the very least be pushing in the best teams.

If we had shown something, Liverpool always had Salah, TAA and Diaz to shake up things. IMO this was going to be our hardest game (as in if we got through I dont think Chelsea, Fulham or Boro are on anywhere near the same threat level). So, yes, we should play our strongest team AND hope Liverpool have an off night. They had one against Man Utd so I guess they were always going to start finding the back of the net again.

As others have said, we're safe in league, no euro game for ages (some of the reasons I'd like Potter in charge) so whoever we play next in league wasn't important for me as we should've put everything into this game and gave ourselves a genuine chance to win a domestic trophy.

claretandbluesky

When we had so little threat from the beginning it just allowed them to keep coming at us, they may have beat us anyhow but it's the lack of ambition towards the game that hurts.

I get that some will agree with Moyes strategy regard prioritising matches but they are in the minority in my view, I think most were surprised by that team selection. I think the commentators couldn't understand it and Harry was spot on at half time.

I am sure if Moyes takes 3 points on Saturday with his rested players it will soften the blow, but for tonight it's a little frustrating to have bothered to get to the quarters and then not field your best side. He also played Emerson, and Paquetta against Arsenal in the last round even though we were in the middle of Euro matches. He may as well have folded back then if it was of such little interest.

Slacker

Now the dust has settled a bit, it was a dismal performance but I think it just proved that Liverpool’s reserves are far better than our reserves.

ASLEFshrugged

Slacker said:

Now the dust has settled a bit, it was a dismal performance but I think it just proved that Liverpool’s reserves are far better than our reserves.

Exactly this. Not all Premier League clubs are equal and we are a long way behind Liverpool when it comes to depth/quality of our squad

OutcastLondoner

All the backing off was what frustrated me so much about that performance. Just let them have the 50/50s and shoot at goal.

What worries me is all our second choice players seem to be seriously out of form. Benrahma has always frustrated but in the past he’s had his moments as a sub. He now looks absolutely awful. Fornals doesn’t look good at all right now, Johnson wasn’t impressive (though playing on the left) and we seem to let in a lot of goals when Mavropanos plays.

Soucek’s passing was so bad yesterday

alderz

I don’t think anybody disputes that liverpools reserves aren’t better than ours, the issue for many is more a question of why we decided to play our reserves in the first place.

claretandbluesky

Aside from the dismal showing the thing I noticed regard Klopp was how much respect he showed Kudus. They crowded him out at all times, got close to prevent him being open to receive the ball and crowded him so he had no where to run into when he did. They did a good job on him. I can see others doing so now he has announced his talent in the Premiership, the question is are many clubs able to do the job Liverpool did?

He is the best of them but I am very happy with how we spent the Rice money and that needs applauding. Many clubs have had windfalls and wasted it.

Whitehorsehammer

Last night some players needed a rest and there was apparently some illness still around. I don't think that he had much choice other than to make changes. Soucek looked dead on his feet after fifteen minutes, I think he probably still had some virus but being tough he said I'm okay I can do it, but he couldn't. The main problem is our second string is not good enough. That may be partly down to lack of game time, but see what happens when they are put in. Our first eleven have got stronger, Paqueta, Kudus, JWP, Alvarez and Emerson finding very good form. You can't play the first eleven every game. What would any of us done, play the full first eleven even if not fit or chance a few of the second eleven?

thornburyiron

As he said today Cresswell had been ill but still went up, Aguerd is still not well and several other players last night are not well and need monitoring.
Goodness only knows what sort of side we’ll have out and what condition they’ll be in.
Maybe partly explains why we were well off the pace last night.