First post of the season and there has been a reason. I wanted to get a tell for the team this year, before I committed anything to record.
We didn’t finish fantastic last year and this year has been more of the same. Two 3 2 losses mask the fact that we were at least 2-0 down in both. A hiding off of Man U can be washed away by the fact they seem to be scoring for fun against everyone.
But in reality we are possibly 2points off where I expected us to be. So not so bad ? Wrong.
There is a real issue with the club currently. We have board who won’t come out and back the manager. We have a manager who is still putting people in the wrong positions, namely yesterday saw Ayew and Hernandez living out on the right hand side for some time. And the worst of all we have in my opinion a player split.
Mark Noble, Mr West Ham, leader, legend and all that. Should not be on the pitch. The rest of the team play at the same level of pace when he is on, and it is killing us. It was plain to see the rejuvenation of Hernandez and Kouyate when Noble was removed in favour of Lanzini. Kouyate can tackle and run forward as can Obiang. Believe it or not I admire the fact Nobes has stayed with team through thick and thin but now is the time to either take a back seat or hit the championship for a few years. Even Nathan Holland is sniffing around , but as we know we don’t do young players (Ask Declan Rice, 1 mistake, benched for 3 weeks and counting) .
Which leads me into Reece Oxford. What’s the deal ? Supposedly the best centre back since time began, goes out on loan to a big German club, plays no games and is coming back to us early. Have we overstated his talent ( THAT Arsenal game…) or is he actually not good enough? We will probably never know because we are reasonably well served at CB and Bilic is scared to play the youngsters because he is under so much scrutiny.
One positive yesterday was our actually playing 2 up top. As we know I have been ranting about this for years. Did it work? No. Why? Antonio wasn’t fit and therefore lacking in the hitting the byline stakes, and Ayew was having a massively poor game. Any crosses of note came from Cresswell and Zableta . Not ideal when you are in a 442 !
Funny thing was someone behind me really giving Swansea shit for holding on to the ball at the back and just passing it about. Then in the second half admonishing WHU for not doing the same thing. Are people that deluded to think we should high press like City ? And get smashed all over the place. Or has the extra season ticket availability mean the idiot quotient moves in parallel?
So in a nutshell I see Noble and Slav on one side and the footballers on the other. This will not end pretty, and many more performances like that seen against the Swans will put paid to both Captain and Manager. It’s the West Ham Way.
We won by the way.
There are resolutions. Slav needs to drop the nice guy act and get stuck into the likes of Noble and Ayew, or just replace them. He has to ensure tat after 3 passes from our own box we have to be in the opponents half, no excuses. And play people in their positions . If this means a CB drops out or a forward, then so be it, you have just improved your bench. And Mark, there’s a lovely ambassador role waiting for you, once you have played at Ipswich for 3 years.
MOTM Zaba, class act , hardly put a foot wrong , shame he must be thinking “what have I done ?”
Sakho still scores when he wants, but just at a club he doesn’t want to be at.
Mrben09 