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

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  • LukerzLukerz
    Romaine10 said:

    For how long tho ;wink ;run

    Not long now ;whistle
  • SuzanneClaretSuzanneClaret
    and you can do the same son.. go on.. off you go. ;fishslap
  • VorselaarhammerVorselaarhammer
    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_MoyesJorderz_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_FootPearces_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
  • thornburyironthornburyiron
    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_hammerbaracks_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_BeardSlaven_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_BeardSlaven_Cups_His_Beard
    We didn't need to smash it.

    All we needed was a 0-0

    Sam style.
  • Ravel49Ravel49
    ;hippo
  • Slaven_Cups_His_BeardSlaven_Cups_His_Beard
    ;bowdown
  • IronHerbIronHerb
    Grey,

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


  • tomkinsworldclasstomkinsworldclass
    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.
  • LukerzLukerz
    edited August 2016
    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_dyegrey_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.
  • TwistandShoutTwistandShout
    More important than the euro exit, someone needs to take over Match Thread duties ;whistle
  • LukerzLukerz
    Me and Twist have bit the dust already lol
  • Ravel49Ravel49
    Didn't Eskiboi have a good run last season? ;hmm
  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    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_HammerExpat_Hammer
    TwistAndShout said:

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

    OK Twist, done it

    ;run
  • LukerzLukerz
    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.
  • OldCastleSwiftOldCastleSwift
    edited August 2016
    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.
  • Pearces_Left_FootPearces_Left_Foot
    Our squad was not ready mainly because of Euro 2016 /The Oylmpics/ and they got injured if none of those things had happened we would have had plenty of players for the European games but hey that's life at West Ham it worked out pretty well last season
  • Slaven_Cups_His_BeardSlaven_Cups_His_Beard
    edited August 2016
    Slaven_A_Laugh_Lukerz said:

    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.

    Thing is Luke, with all due respect weren't you saying the same at this time last year?

    And regarding Bllic doing some punditry then it has little to with anything

    ;ok
  • tomkinsworldclasstomkinsworldclass
    Aslef, good memory ;bowdown Just goes to show how important planning is and trying to tie up the right kind of deals. Although I'm much happier we signed Masuaku than Santon.
  • Slaven_Cups_His_BeardSlaven_Cups_His_Beard
    OldCastleSwift said:

    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.

    Blimey.....

    Let's hope they create another competition to help keep us going

    ;wink

    Yes it's disappointing and I wanted Europe groups last year, perhaps more than this year for some reason. I didn't think we'd get out of the groups in either year but it would be a good learning curve for us. Next small step and all that.

    But there isn't a lot you can do with 9 key players missing at the same time, even though on paper you'd expect that team to win or go through.
  • sweepy23sweepy23
    I see a few people on here are not too disappointed to be out of Europe as it will mean we finish further up the league. Here are my issues with this:

    1) The reward for finishing higher up the league is Europe. Aside from cash it is the incentive.

    2) West Ham had and hopefully still have a huge opportunity. We are supposedly the 13th biggest brand in football now. This is due to our stadium, league standings etc but it is also because of the attention we've recently received due to being on TV more often, having Payet splashed all over Europe during the Euros in his West Ham kit. Europe would have allowed us to continue on this ride for longer and the brand would have been much stronger for it.

    3) Reece Oxford. Why only Oxford? Well previously I stated that a lot of players who would have had European game time may get vey little game time if any at all this season. People will be unhappy. Oxford maybe the unhappiest. If we don't play him why would he stay?

    4) keeping our best players and attracting great talent. Who knows what will happen with Payet now and in regards to attracting talent, well we've seen that people aren't exactly jumping at the chance of joining us. Having a European cup run would have made the club a lot more of an exciting prospect to join. Spurs regularly being in the Europa league easily attracted good talent. The brand would have grown and people would have come.

    5) I now believe we will go backwards this year. I don't see us finishing 7th again as I believe Chelsea and Liverpool will be better. I don't think we will get this opportunity again for a couple of years.

    Sorry for being so negative. In the same way people didn't want to move to the OS. I believe moving forward is always best for our club and that doesn't mean not making the Europa league main competition.
  • Pearces_Left_FootPearces_Left_Foot
    Sweepy I get your points I think 7th is possible as Southampton and Leicester will be worse this year and have European football. Its disappointing but we are moving forward as a club I think the league cup/Fa cup runs are important for the youngsters to game time this. I look at our squad now and its better than last years IMO . This time last year we had exactly the same feeling and Slav gave us our best season in a long time keep the faith this is West Ham we never do it the easy way but I can see us having a good season again
  • OutcastLondonerOutcastLondoner
    It's a shame we've lost a chance to give Oxford, Burke and Fletcher regular games. Let's hope we get a cup run and Bilic can work them in.
  • Pearces_Left_FootPearces_Left_Foot
    http://www.claretandhugh.info/leroy-unimpressed-but-points-to-reasons-why/
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