West Ham Post Match Thread

I am sick and tired of teams turning up and refusing to play football.
West Ham very much turned up and played football. They very nearly took 3 points. Not one, three. We have to be good enough to beat very defensive teams. Being very defensive is a legitimate way of playing. And always has been. Quit bleating, get realistic - teams have an absolute right to defend to the max. And long may that continue. Otherwise we just ask teams to play to suit the way we play. And that's like asking Mike Tyson to never hit anyone 'cos he's massively stronger. Suck it up.
 
As a relatively new fan of the sport, it sickens me how many fans are okay with their teams not even trying to attack. Sports are entertainment. Hearing pundits defend it is even more ridiculous.

The reason basketball has a shot clock is to stop inferior teams from trying to hold the ball and win 20 - 19. I'm not suggesting anything like that, but the refs need to stamp out the obvious time wasting. It's not entertaining when City miss a shot and I have time to take the trash out before the ball is back in play.
 
Our set piece defending has been poor recently, and it's United's strength. Both the truth and uncontroversial, even Pep has admitted it several times this week. I don't think I mentioned results but you keep bringing them up, completely missing that we have declined in performance since October and we're now getting through 2-1 rather than 5,6,7 for a variety of reasons, but we now need to turn it back on where it will matter most. I didn't mention lucky, only that we're having to grind it out which is a long way from our best, albeit admirable.
Mate, ManUre have been shopping at 'Land of the Giants' for their players. The only way we'll out do them at set pieces is if the whole team wears platform football boots.

Something has happened since a week or 2 before the last International break... We've basically played the same team all season & fatigue has set in. We've been unable to rotate as much as we'd like owing to the fact our performances drop off too much when we do.

However the biggest factor affecting our performances are teams deciding to play a deep lying 5-4-1 whilst camped in their penalty box. They then rely on hitting us on the break & scoring from set pieces which makes for tougher, uglier games.

We're victims of our early season success, but now we have to find other ways to combat the new hurdles we face. The way this season is panning out & the way some gamea are becoming attritional, are not our fault. We just have to find our way past the understandably negative tactics we're facing in most matches we play.

As for our opposition, they couldn't give a shit if they only have to employ these tactics twice a season. But for us, it means less exciting matches because it seems every team we face have decided on employing these Caveman tactics as a means of survival against us. It's not pretty, but it's affective & it's stopped us running up cricket scores every match.
 
We have too much talent and a desire to win that Pep is partly responsible for instilling into the side to not be on the end oi=f some more thumpings into the future no matter how the opposition sets up its stall as they say.

All sides go through periods where not all goes to plan but for the moment if playing against sides that are not easy to break down still gets us three points then we have little to complain about.

All runs come to an end and no doubt ours will maybe this week but in the meantime we have created a platform to have one of our best seasons on record.

Don't forget that the sides we play against that we struggled against as such in recent times but still come out on top of can do likewise to the likes of Manure, Chelsea , Liverpool and co and are most likely to do so.
 
As a relatively new fan of the sport, it sickens me how many fans are okay with their teams not even trying to attack. Sports are entertainment. Hearing pundits defend it is even more ridiculous.

The reason basketball has a shot clock is to stop inferior teams from trying to hold the ball and win 20 - 19. I'm not suggesting anything like that, but the refs need to stamp out the obvious time wasting. It's not entertaining when City miss a shot and I have time to take the trash out before the ball is back in play.

You may be a relatively new fan but your comments are spot on. If the refs in the last 2 games had after 10 minutes warned the goalies they would be booked If they continued wasting time and then sent off if they persisted in time wasting, it would have put a stop to it. The problem is the standard of refs is very poor and most have them have no balls and always take the easy option.
 
As always an early goal is the key, or at least we score first. Teams will not change the plan too much but they will have to open up a little. It is no coincidence we are scoring late goals, even chuckle two alluded to it on MOTD 2 tonight, they are dead on their feet. Fear as well starts to eat away at them, the same as it did to teams at the swamp. As the clock ticks down they start panicking, that thought, " They always score goals in the last minutes" seeps in, the so close but yet so far syndrome. We also have four or five world class players who with one moment of magic can win a game on their own. It is almost impossible to keep all of them quiet all game. The refs have to clamp down on blatant timewasting though, defending is one thing, totally ruining the game is another, plus it is a form of cheating.
 
Otamendi - how far he has come.

Would say the same for Eliaquim but for that last minute brain fart. But even he looks better under Pep - and should stay - have a feeling he will deliver some important goal this season.

So nice to have a coach that makes the correct adjustments.

And these late wins have to be daggers to that other squad.

PS: Zabs is in a class all his own. Legend.
 
noticed a lot of shooting of late, especially by sane and jesus has been at comfortable heights for the keepers to palm away, they need to get them in along the ground where the keeper has a lot less chance of getting down to them
Seem to remember a shot not so long ago that flew into the top corner of the net not sure but I think it won the match
 
noticed a lot of shooting of late, especially by sane and jesus has been at comfortable heights for the keepers to palm away, they need to get them in along the ground where the keeper has a lot less chance of getting down to them
Its one of Peps tactics for when they pack the box the idea being the defenders start coming out to stop the shots leaving gaps for us to exploit but I get what you mean theres no reason we can't be a bigger threat from these chances with the talent with have.
 

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