Slaven Bilic named as West Ham Manager (09.06.15)
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Comments
This may have kept us a clean sheet against Swansea, but I doubt very much that conceding possession so easily to better sides will achieve the same thing, and it made for horrible football. I feel we're approaching the problem from the wrong side; some mistakes will happen, but why do so many of ours cost us goals?
The first goal we conceded to Newcastle is a good example. Rice could have done better, a slip put him under pressure and then there was no easy out and he lost possession. However, had either Zabaletta been better positioned, or Noble had reacted better or been quicker than a snail, we might well not have conceded.
So whilst I agree we need to try to cut out the silly mistakes, it can't be by adopting such a negative strategy as on Saturday. For one thing, it was awful to watch, and for another, it's questionable how effective it will be over the course of a season. Simple stuff like making yourself available to the player with the ball and being able to cover should we lose possession must be worked on to get away from the extremely negative tactics employed yesterday.
I don't think the 'safe' ball is necessarily a planned tactic, simply the result of players lacking confidence.
Koeman made the point about Everton (perhaps unwisely) after their draw with Appolon:
We can't play football expecting to concede every time we lose possession in our half. All it leads to is cautious play. What we have to do it be set up well enough to deal with mistakes in our own half.
We get embarrassingly opened up every time we lose possession. You only have to watch the amount of times we have a corner and 10 seconds later we're defending our own box.
Look at this season: Man Utd, Southampton, Newcastle, Spurs. I count at least 6 goals where we have been opened up after some kind of breakdown further up the pitch.
Pretty simple stuff to stop. A week working on shape on the training ground. We can't be so exposed every time we make an error in midfield. No team can play games without losing possession. We have to deal with it better.
The other problem is our only natural winger is very hit and miss technically. We rely on him to get us up the pitch, but with no confidence he will do. All our other wide options drift infield. Masuaku and Byram need to be utilised more. We need an out ball. Kouyate is a big issue. Suited to playing CB, but with qualities to be an outstanding CM, but those qualities don't include ball retention. It's a problem. At present the Noble/Obiang/Lanzini midfield is likely to see us get hold of the ball more and give us a better chance for dictating play.
Fans need to work out what they want, nearly all through the the last 2 years of the SA reign, it was "I can't watch this, it's the worst football I've seen in 30 years"....
Now during the SB reign, it's "I can't watch this, it's the worst football I've seen in 30 years"....
Is it? Is it really? I think it's probably the worst football since you last moaned about seeing the worst football.
Of course as soon as SB goes attacking minded and we get picked off 1-3, 2-3, 0-4 the cry is "Oh for goodness sack can't he sort out the defense, I'm sick and tired of getting hammered". Well this is challenge, when we tighten up we're losing something somewhere else.
Most of Slav's first season we were open, but we scored a lot, that got us out of jail, it was fun and we won plenty, firstly we had Payet and while on the pitch during his career stand out season we could almost do what we liked with little consequence.
During SA 4th season, he came across a way of playing that worked for us in the first half of the season, everyone was off their seat. This is the way both managers WANT to play, however other circumstances normally dictate they don't or can't.
You have to ask what the Dave's really want here. They've appointed the right guy to save their investment and get back up, they've openly interfered with transfers they don't renew his contract after not spending a penny in January on the back of the best PL start we'd ever had.
They then hire the guy for the final season at the Boleyn, he does the business, once again they didn't spend anything in January to keep the run going, all the while they're happy to rely on some of the same old injured faces.
In my opinion they're running down his contract, unless he pulls something massive out of the bag and gets us to 7/8th again, which is still possible. This is another awful scenario, Sully in an interview "not sure if he was a one season wonder", jeez wept......then only spending 14m net in the summer, yet on twitter one of the co-owners telling fans all ticket/trader goes into the transfer pot.......yep that would be about 40m+ then Mr Gold wouldn't it?
They didn't get Slav's number one player, the one that would possibly allow you to go from defense to attack and not worry about being picked off if it came back.
So what is their agenda? Run his contract down and get another perceived slightly better manager in, only spend the bare minimum again hoping he can get slightly more out of this squad? Then run his contract down a couple of years and repeat?
If so, then fine.......but at least give the fans an indication, oh that's right you can't because then you might not sell 52K season tickets, sorry I forgot.
As for a large number of our fans (smh), regarding the Slav situation, he may not be the long term manager and he may of made a number of questionable decisions, but seriously, be careful what you wish for, because outside of any other ex-Hammer you won't get anyone as passionate about this club, so what is it you really want? Well that's what most of them bang on about half the time "All i want is people to play for the badge/shirt"........well that's what you're getting so belt up.
All these tactical geniuses out there, I saw barely a negative comment about 4-4-2 yesterday, most fans rubbing their hands "oh yes big man little man", apart from the die hard "out merchants" who were still banging on about hernandez being on the wing - NO HE WASN'T, yet once the display wasn't up to scratch and Hernandez gets brought off, (TV Camera's waited just long enough to watch him sit down and pull a face and shake his head - even through probably nothing to do with being substituted!) and he manages to get a goal out of bad boy sakho and another peach of a cross from Masuaku, that's what subs are for!!! All of a sudden it's "Oh well he should've started those two".......honestly, they are relentless, once they've got their agenda, they won't let go until the man is gone, then they'll say "told ya"....I despair I really do, they seem to forget this is what we've done for 30 odd years. I have no problem with people wanting us to be successful, or improve, but jeez lets try and do it the right way.
Whether you love him or hate him Sam Allardyce was right on two counts...
"most of them are deluded and talk ....... "
"once you stop getting results they will turn on you"
Rant over and all in my opinion.
;ok
coyi
I don't see it as a reason not to try and employ the best manager available.
If we had a vacancy, then I wouldn't disagree.
But we don't, and personally, I don't think shipping out Bilic to get Ancelotti would move us forward long term.
We were rank against Swansea, but that isn't the way we have played all season, and there is no reason to fear that that is how we are going to continue to play, imo.
Keep the faith and keep Slaven, says I.
There is a lot of hot air written about the owners and the way the club is run, the likes of SA and SB have enough about them that if it was that bad, they'd of walked or at least not put up with some of it (perhaps they did say things in the background)
But when you have an owner who keeps spouting "trying to get to next level" and only spends 14m net in a summer window, then you have to question, exactly how far are they prepared to go?
Perhaps this was the plan all along, baby steps, trouble is you can't tell half our fanbase that, they want it now, they want it all and they'll knee jerk all the way along
I have misgivings about them and their decision making.
In my opinion if you have a manager in the last year of their contract not fully supported in the transfer window and not having their contract extended either, then that is pretty much equivalent of there being a managerial vacancy.
Galling that it is seemingly turning out to be Sam's final year replayed all over again
I don't agree. That's just my onions.
We were poor at NUFC and imploded at MUFC where many get battered, yesterday wasn't pretty but it was effective
We won by dint of an excellent peice of work by Arthur and Sakho being where a striker should be.
Almost everything else from midfield going forward was ineffective as it failed to result in a goal.
poor Swansea were.
We won lol
We weren't effective, we survived.
We were poor in every part of the pitch and we won because we put in a decent cross and Sakho made a decent run in the last minute. It wasn’t tactical supremacy.
The exact same thing could have happened the other way around, with Swansea scoring and winning, and nothing in the way we approached the game would have been deemed effective. I don’t think the result is enough to condone how badly we played in every area of the pitch.
It was Swansea they hadn't conceded away no two games are the same, you can only beat who is in front of you
I don't think anyone is saying it was a good performance and the manager certainly wasn't post match but it was a good 3 points. We hung in there and had the moment of quality when it mattered and made it count. Most of the players did their jobs, especially when it came to keeping them out
I said we were lucky because as much as they were able to win the ball off us and move it forward, they couldn't actually get it into a dangerous position.
The defenders were reasonably effective but the team wasn't. We survived by chance rather than design.
Many people have previously bemoaned our inability to do the former (what do they do in training don't they practice defending etc) or bewailed our propensity to do the latter. Or have been quick to say that conceding a late goal results from a readiness to crumble and absence of fight and passion.
I think that those who have moaned about those things and the perceived weaknesses seem to have short memories.
Yes it was a poor performance. Will there be others? Almost certainly. Will there be better ones? Yes. Will the best manager in the world change that? No.
Reasons to be cheerful, part I.
This pattern has been in evidence since the start of last season. This season seems to suggest a similar pattern:
Man Utd 4-0 West Ham
Southampton 3-2 West Ham
Newcastle 3-0 West Ham
West Ham 2-0 Huddersfield
WBA 0-0 West Ham
West Ham 2-3 Spurs
West Ham 1-0 Swansea
A group of three defeats followed by a group of unconvincing, but improved, results.
I don't want the season to continue this pattern. It means we'll get a few terrible defeats, and when we do win, it will feel bittersweet, more the former than the latter. I don't think we've played well in one game this season. Ok, we were reasonable in the Cup, but that was against sides below our level. Is the side real quality? No. We have the same midfield as three years ago. Noble and Kouyate have been together since 2014. Carroll is still relied upon to determine the course of a season, same as in 2012. We still have a short-term RB just like we did with Joey O'Brien under Sam. But the side is surely better than what it's currently showing.
In Bilic's first season, we had an identity. I know many say "it was just the Payet show". It wasn't. We were a good counter-attacking side, with adventurous full-backs, led by Payet and Antonio, who could knock the ball about well and then lob Andy on when he was fit and get the ball wide. We went through the pitch quickly, but nor through launching it, through forward thinking passes. The defence kept clean sheets, albeit was also leaky, Lanzini kept hold of the ball. The balance was good.
We've now become an ultra defensive and cautious side, who whenever we open up a bit more, we get beaten. Bilic needs to find some system and solution to get the best out of players. That doesn't necessarily mean getting all the best players on the pitch in their best positions. If he has to leave players unhappy, so be it. If he goes with Masuaku at LW and leaves out Ayew and Arnautovic for a few weeks; £6m vs £45m of signings, so be it. If he drops Hernandez or Carroll in favour of the other, so be it. If he plays Kouyate at CB instead of his preferred CM, so be it. If he sticks Antonio at RWB as opposed to RW, so be it. We need to pick a balanced squad. At the moment it isn't. The only part that looks balanced is the back five, and that has shown in the last few weeks. Zabaleta - Fonte - Reid - Cresswell or Zabaleta - Fonte - Reid - Ogbonna - Cresswell is a well complimented back four/five, with Hart behind them. But he needs to pick a more fluid midfield and forward line and make some big calls.
All IMO.
Otherwise it could be more of the same and basically what we've always done
..the clean sheet (contextualise that with a blunt Swansea strike force).
..never giving up and that they kept on going that to the end (contextualise that with not conceding 1 goal which has this season has lead to the flood gates opening).
The guy was a top 4 talent.
Bilic just had to pick him, he then did things that had nothing to do with coaching...