The obsession with other teams raising their game against us.

[The perfect fumble]

Leicester notwithstanding, I do believe Slaven Bilić allowed himself to believe he could take the game to us on the wide pitch of the London stadium because of all the bullshit swirling around in the press, I know managers talk the talk in the pre match conferences, but he really seemed to believe there was some form of crisis in our club that West Ham could exploit and he was taught a lesson.

We need to see some of that magic at Goodison tomorrow and everywhere else from now on.

 

[RayCTID]

First half killed us against Leicester killed us but again we did have a couple of good shouts for a penalty in the first half (whether we would of converted them would of been another matter). Leicester after that game failed to kick on.

 

[Bentheblue]

Yeah, fair point. Although if De Bruyne buried the empty net, or Otamendi and Kolarov didn't defend like schoolboys, then we'd probably still have won the game.

Does not alter the fact the ref had an absolute shocker, very biased towards Chelsea, followed by an equally questionable performance by the Burnley ref. Agreed that with better finishing, defending and a tad more luck we may just have nicked the Chavs game.

 

[Bentheblue]

Even in the majority of games we win, there is an issue with the referee.

Well there certainly was with the ref against Burnley at home.

 

[cleavers]

First half killed us against Leicester killed us

First 20 minutes, it was a f*cking shambles, they weren't world beaters we were just absolute shite, the rest of the game we were the better team, but giving a team 3 start is never a good idea.

 

[aguero93:20]

Watch out or aguero93:20 will come sniffing

Nah, cleavers isn't a rag.

 

[RayCTID]

First 20 minutes, it was a f*cking shambles, they weren't world beaters we were just absolute shite, the rest of the game we were the better team, but giving a team 3 start is never a good idea.

I agree on that but we did show a little bottle in the game. The players could of continued to feel sorry for themselves and made the scoreline a lot worse than it ended up.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I think it's an over-used excuse, but you can't say there's never any truth in it. There are certain matches where for whatever reason, the opposition do pull out all the stops. It might be because of a particular rivalry, or maybe high levels of confidence based on previous results enables a side to play better than they do most other weeks. Everton away was a prime example of that, until we started to win there occasionally. Liverpool away remains so.

So it's a poor excuse to use week in, week out, but it is wrong to say it never happens.

 

[Patientman63]

Like a mate of mine says, it's easier to destroy than create.

I don't think teams raise their game per se, they just put big numbers behind the ball. Certainly where most home games are concerned, teams just plant 8 men in the 18 yard box and defend like fuck. It's not skillful, just needs hard work, but it's very effective against a creative side. Everton at ours as a prime example.

A better defence (coming soon you'd like to think) should shut out the goals on the break / daft goals given away. That doesn't mean we'll score tho!

I remember the Barca Chelsea game in the champs league a few years back, Chelsea down to 10 men and defending like hell, just Torres up front. This was Barca in their pomp, probably the best midfield in the world ever, and even they couldn't puncture a deep and packed out defence. Chelsea eventually nabbed it with a break away goal, which has a familiar twang about it....

 

[blueju]

They play well because we afford them acres of space on the breakmost well organised teams don't. If they're going to park the bus we need to find other ways to break them down than just throwing everyone into their half trying to pass them to death. Surely by now we should have learned another way to get teams out of their defensive shell.