Astra - Home - Thursday 25th August - Europa League 2nd Leg

thornburyiron

I can't say I'm overly disappointed with going out as I feel it would definitely have had a detrimental impact on our league form as it has in the past with other teams such as Spurs and Liverpool etc.
What I'm most disappointed with is, ignoring all the injuries, most of the players here have been training together since early July but seem absolutely clueless as to what they're doing. We're obviously missing our skilful players like Payet and Lanzini but we still don't seem fully match fit or have any intensity to our games.

Pearces_Left_Foot

The problem is we don't play the same team twice in a row its a mish mash every week

baracks_a_hammer

Who else thinks that Slav could have done without doing the euro punditry. The prem season is long enough and ours was destined to be longer again in 16/17 - everyone needs time to recharge the batteries - either he should have taken some complete rest or started planning for the hectic season ahead - a prem league manager has enough on their plate without other distractions?

SuzanneClaret

Yeoldhammer said:

unfortunately it kind of confirms we are a 1 man team, without Payet we look hopeless.

Unfortunately we now have a huge squad with a load of players not going to get game time. I can imagine Burke will probably be loaned out along with any other youngster now to the champo

I don't agree with this at all. A fit/good striker [Carroll] played from the start [Fletcher] and those chances would have been put away.

A fit/playing Nobes and Cresser and we would have had a much more cohesive plan.

baracks_a_hammer

On the other hand last season when Payet was injured we looked pretty short of ideas, the goals dried up somewhat but luckily we picked up some points largely thanks to Ginge

Lukerz

Of course Payet changes everything.

He's a world class player playing for West Ham.

Ravel49

For how long tho ;wink ;run

SuzanneClaret

;fishslap go to your room.

Lukerz

Romaine10 said:

For how long tho ;wink ;run

Not long now ;whistle

SuzanneClaret

and you can do the same son.. go on.. off you go. ;fishslap

Vorselaarhammer

playing three defensive MF didn't help as that naturally lowers intensity.

This is Bilics first BIG failure with us (Swansea last year wasn't great either) let's see him pick us up

But with City away we may have a depressing couple of weeks in front of us.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

Horrible performance and horrible result.

But had Cresswell, Noble, Payet, Ayew, Carroll, Feghouli and Sakho been playing, we'd have smashed it.

And the biggest miss of all for me, which is Lanzini.

I'd say the players we have capable of creating something are: Lanzini, Payet, Ayew, Noble, Feghouli, Antonio and Cresswell.

All missing but one.

Players likely to score: Lanzini, Payet, Carroll, Sakho, Ayew, Kouyate and Antonio.

All missing but two.

Not sure many teams could cope with that. It's all very well saying we should be able to beat Astra, but we were so short of creative players it's unbelievable.

Pearces_Left_Foot

I agree we were playing a well organised hard working team and our patched up team could n't find away through another day and a bit of luck we might of but I have put it down to" one of those days" and look forward to the rest of the season

thornburyiron

Patched up team or not those on the pitch should be capable of the basics. First half hardly anyone broke into a trot let alone a run.

baracks_a_hammer

The bloke I feel most sorry for is the chap we signed yesterday - you can imagine his conversation with sully - "come and join West Ham and you'll be playing European football this season..."

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

baracks_a_hammer said:

Who else thinks that Slav could have done without doing the euro punditry. The prem season is long enough and ours was destined to be longer again in 16/17 - everyone needs time to recharge the batteries - either he should have taken some complete rest or started planning for the hectic season ahead - a prem league manager has enough on their plate without other distractions?

Has absolutely zero to do with anything for me.

IMO

;ok

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

We didn't need to smash it.

All we needed was a 0-0

Sam style.

Ravel49

;hippo

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

;bowdown

IronHerb

Grey,

Can you get a new smiley of a headless chicken and label it ;luke?

tomkinsworldclass

Theres lots of possible reasons behind as to why we failed to progress but we all know the conditions surrounding the games with astra and the pre-requisites with those kind of games; they are going to be organised, tough to break down, obscene amounts of gamesmanship, etc, etc. The great thing about Bilic is that before and after games he is 100% right in what he says, he doesnt hide it and is normally spot on in his analysis. He was aware of the difficulties because Romania and other teams excelled at the euros playing in a similar way, so the players and personnel must've been aware

In hindsight not signing Arthur before he was ineligible was a blow as we needed a natural LB to create width, Risking AC on a dodgy pitch should've been a no-go and he was badly missed last night, Sakho could've been an option if he had been anywhere near somewhat fit. But overall we only have ourselves to blame, we were embarrassingly outplaying Stoke in the final game last season but threw it away and subsequently automatic euro qualification as well.

Lukerz

Herb - not really a headless chicken mate.

All my points are concerns I brought up weeks ago (no striker, low net spend, first XI not improved etc).

I then commented on how flat we were v Chelsea, Astra (a) and Bournemouth and how I was concerned with our level of intensity.

grey_til_I_dye

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard said:

We didn't need to smash it.

All we needed was a 0-0

Sam style.

Exactly. It was naive in the extreme for Brian to make that run and try that pass. If it's 0-0 at HT I think we would have gone through, as they would have had to come on to us, and they didn't really look like they had enough to break us down if we had been organised.

TwistandShout

More important than the euro exit, someone needs to take over Match Thread duties ;whistle

Lukerz

Me and Twist have bit the dust already lol

Ravel49

Didn't Eskiboi have a good run last season? ;hmm

ASLEFshrugged

TWC - Arthur played in the Champions' League on 3 August, the same day Santon flew to London for his medical. If he'd passed that we'd never have bought Arthur.

Expat_Hammer

TwistAndShout said:

More important than the euro exit, someone needs to take over Match Thread duties ;whistle

OK Twist, done it

;run

Lukerz

How many times, a month ago, did people say chill. We have until mid August until the season starts. Plenty of time to do business.

But some of us said "no, the season starts when we KO away at Domzale, because a big part of our season is being in Europe".

The lesson learnt is have your squad ready for the start of the season, whether that's late July/early August or mid August.

OldCastleSwift

As daft as it sounds, I actually feel a bit like the season is over already. Was really hoping for a decent Europa run. Now it feels like we're competing for 8th place in the league and not a lot else.

I really hope we target the FA Cup this season, and give it everything.