Gyros Peter
Sauce salad?
Hopefully they were managing his game time as he has played a lot of minutes and the game had gone. There's been talk of players playing through niggles too so maybe he's one of them?
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Official Matchday 24: West Ham United vs Nottingham Forest vs VAR. Sat 25th Feb 2023 @ 15:00hrs (GMT).
- Thread starter Redemption
- Start date
SouthManchesterTree
Viv Anderson
I thought the first 15 minutes yesterday we looked poor and kept giving the ball way - and I think even at home we tend to start weakly.
Then until the GK got injured in the second half I wasn’t too worrried. I thought we were frustrating WH without doing too much ourselves and starting to look like we could nick it. I don’t think until they scored we were as bad as others are saying.
But once we conceded we were pathetic. Really worrying against an average team. The midfield was powder-puff without Shelvey. If he needed testing fair enough but we should have brought another midfielder on. If it was an attacking change I’d ask (1) why we would do that - as the main thing yesterday was not to lose and (2) surely Scarpa would be far more threatening than Ayew, who should be an emergency back up at best
Then until the GK got injured in the second half I wasn’t too worrried. I thought we were frustrating WH without doing too much ourselves and starting to look like we could nick it. I don’t think until they scored we were as bad as others are saying.
But once we conceded we were pathetic. Really worrying against an average team. The midfield was powder-puff without Shelvey. If he needed testing fair enough but we should have brought another midfielder on. If it was an attacking change I’d ask (1) why we would do that - as the main thing yesterday was not to lose and (2) surely Scarpa would be far more threatening than Ayew, who should be an emergency back up at best
Gyros Peter
Sauce salad?
Just read a quote from Cooper saying Lodi was touch and go in terms of starting yesterday as he's carrying a groin injury.
Frank Clark’s Tash
Jack Burkitt
Another injury? Well colour me surprised.
Raymondo Ponte'
It's all about mid-table...
When Sham curled their 3rd goal in, you could see where it was going a mile off, it was just so well placed that our keeper couldn't get a hand to it. Lodi was walking behind the goal at the time, he didn't even turn his head or react in any way, not an eyelid batted! Just slumped away. Bit weird that.
The 4th goal a complete blatant foul.
Poor defending 2cnd half.
The 4th goal a complete blatant foul.
Poor defending 2cnd half.
eyupmeduck
Geoff Thomas
I think having slept on it some context came to mind.
We played 4 of our 5 fit defenders, Lodi seemed off which is a bit more understandable seeing as he was carrying an injury and I do at present have a mild panic whenever Felipe exerts himself because he puts his body on the line, their remit at present must partly be try to get through the match unscathed.
I think the Shelvey sub was about fitness too and perhaps a change of shape like versus Man City but it did not pay off, mainly because we then went 1 for 1 versus Rice and Pacqueta (The latter who I looked at thinking he was a class above throughout the game and certainly too good to be playing for a side in the bottom half). Its probably £250m worth of midfield that we tried to match with Jack Colback and Freuler. Think we miss Yates in those circumstances and thats not me saying he's worth the same amount but he doesn't give a monkeys who he is facing and often disrupts play well and draws fouls whereas the two we had on then are in my mind decent chaps but too polite sometimes.
I think if we were happy with the shape then it would be like for like but it did feel like with their injured keeper that they were getting very impatient and looking susceptible to a counter attack. Ben Johnson for them looked susceptible, should have conceded at least 1 penalty and Keeping the same shape then obviously we could have put on Scarpa, Danilo or Mangala (Who is quality btw)
Having said that, once we conceded we lacked brain power and I don't care whichever way you paint it, conceding 4 goals in 15 minutes is amateur hour and is about mentality as much as ability.
Hopefully our physio is given all of the tools needed to get players fit to contribute because arguably we started yesterday with maybe 5 or 6 first choice players.
I think at home the crowd will carry the team and hopefully that starts with Everton, away from home we need to sort our shit out because we make teams look like f***ing Brazil even in short spurts and we look like a soccer aid team, although in fairness in those 15 minutes Olly Murs would have done a better job than we did!
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We played 4 of our 5 fit defenders, Lodi seemed off which is a bit more understandable seeing as he was carrying an injury and I do at present have a mild panic whenever Felipe exerts himself because he puts his body on the line, their remit at present must partly be try to get through the match unscathed.
I think the Shelvey sub was about fitness too and perhaps a change of shape like versus Man City but it did not pay off, mainly because we then went 1 for 1 versus Rice and Pacqueta (The latter who I looked at thinking he was a class above throughout the game and certainly too good to be playing for a side in the bottom half). Its probably £250m worth of midfield that we tried to match with Jack Colback and Freuler. Think we miss Yates in those circumstances and thats not me saying he's worth the same amount but he doesn't give a monkeys who he is facing and often disrupts play well and draws fouls whereas the two we had on then are in my mind decent chaps but too polite sometimes.
I think if we were happy with the shape then it would be like for like but it did feel like with their injured keeper that they were getting very impatient and looking susceptible to a counter attack. Ben Johnson for them looked susceptible, should have conceded at least 1 penalty and Keeping the same shape then obviously we could have put on Scarpa, Danilo or Mangala (Who is quality btw)
Having said that, once we conceded we lacked brain power and I don't care whichever way you paint it, conceding 4 goals in 15 minutes is amateur hour and is about mentality as much as ability.
Hopefully our physio is given all of the tools needed to get players fit to contribute because arguably we started yesterday with maybe 5 or 6 first choice players.
I think at home the crowd will carry the team and hopefully that starts with Everton, away from home we need to sort our shit out because we make teams look like f***ing Brazil even in short spurts and we look like a soccer aid team, although in fairness in those 15 minutes Olly Murs would have done a better job than we did!
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Any Time Now
Jack Armstrong
Generally speaking games are won or lost in midfield and even when we had our 3 men sat in there we weren't controlling midfield, we were just absorbing pressure and doing enough to hold on. Colback was doing a decent job of covering Lodi and plugging the gaps between him and Felipe, Shelvey was trying to get on the ball and do something positive but WHU quickly began limiting his ability to get on the ball and he offered little outside of that (kind of what we expect though) and Freuler was almost nowhere to be seen. Williams had barely any protection which WHU exploited more and more
Dropping to 2 in CM was a swing and a miss, there's logic to the switch so Cooper doesn't deserve absolute pelters but he definitely shoulders part of the blame. In an ideal world we capitalize on the game opening up and our change of shape allows us to push WHU back and allows us to get more of the ball in their half. In reality it left a massive void in the middle of the park and now not only are we worrying about isolated fullbacks but we also have spaces opening up all over the middle of the park and our entire defence is exposed
I mentioned before the City game that I can see our midfield temporarily being Freuler, Colback and Shelvey which on paper is full of experience but with the intensity of the EPL you have to have energy in the middle. Which of those 3 provides that? The combined age of them is 93 years old and while Freuler covers a lot of ground he's not the type of player to get close and personal and press opposition into mistakes/create loose balls in the way someone like Yatesy does. We're basically having to use 3 players to do the work that other teams are capable of managing with 2, which is also why it often feels like we're a man down
The question becomes where do we go from here? and to be honest, with our current injuries i'm not really sure. Danilo at this stage is deemed to lack discipline, Scarpa of his own admittance says that the tempo of the prem is hard to adapt to so probably not the best idea to start playing him out of position in a role that relies on defensive discipline. That leaves Mangala, probably the best option currently but he also has a habit of drifting in and out of games
It's a tough one for sure, we just have to hope we can get some of our injured players back quicker than expected. One way or another Coops will find a way
Dropping to 2 in CM was a swing and a miss, there's logic to the switch so Cooper doesn't deserve absolute pelters but he definitely shoulders part of the blame. In an ideal world we capitalize on the game opening up and our change of shape allows us to push WHU back and allows us to get more of the ball in their half. In reality it left a massive void in the middle of the park and now not only are we worrying about isolated fullbacks but we also have spaces opening up all over the middle of the park and our entire defence is exposed
I mentioned before the City game that I can see our midfield temporarily being Freuler, Colback and Shelvey which on paper is full of experience but with the intensity of the EPL you have to have energy in the middle. Which of those 3 provides that? The combined age of them is 93 years old and while Freuler covers a lot of ground he's not the type of player to get close and personal and press opposition into mistakes/create loose balls in the way someone like Yatesy does. We're basically having to use 3 players to do the work that other teams are capable of managing with 2, which is also why it often feels like we're a man down
The question becomes where do we go from here? and to be honest, with our current injuries i'm not really sure. Danilo at this stage is deemed to lack discipline, Scarpa of his own admittance says that the tempo of the prem is hard to adapt to so probably not the best idea to start playing him out of position in a role that relies on defensive discipline. That leaves Mangala, probably the best option currently but he also has a habit of drifting in and out of games
It's a tough one for sure, we just have to hope we can get some of our injured players back quicker than expected. One way or another Coops will find a way
Notcher
Stuart Pearce
Shelvey didn't quite have his passing boots on yesterday but there were absolutely no forward runs for him to pick out. Wood can't run channels and inexplicably you can't hit it into him either.
All roads lead to Wood being a wasted cog in the machine as a starter. I think he's got a role to play but that is off the bench in certain situations.
All roads lead to Wood being a wasted cog in the machine as a starter. I think he's got a role to play but that is off the bench in certain situations.
Notts_WHUFan
A. Trialist
Most proper West Ham fans will nod in agreement with most of that.
SouthManchesterTree
Viv Anderson
Wood and Ayew have roles within the squad but they’re both higher up the pecking order than I’d like
MC Plantpot
First Team Squad
Yeah, got to say, I’ve heard WHU fans over the years complaining about the atmosphere. My word though, experiencing it first hand, it is bad. Imagine it if you ever dropped to the Championship?
SouthManchesterTree
Viv Anderson
Yeah result aside it was an awful away day. West Ham have always had great fans but there was no atmosphere at all.
The acoustics were good for a tannoy at an athletics meeting, but for football supporters they were terrible. A really high roof, and then the away supporters in the two tiers split by those weird platforms. Then the home and away supporters blocked from each other in the lower tier by a big purple partition.
I can only assume the demographic has changed significantly too as the place was half empty at 85 minutes, even with them 4-0 up.
Man City have done quite a good job of converting an athletics stadium, and grounds like Derby are ‘new’ but have a good atmosphere, but West Ham was terrible. Everything appears to be designed to depart from Upton Park and prevent a traditional football match atmosphere as much as possible.
It’s not such an issue at Arsenal and Spurs, as they’ve always had quiet support, but spoiling West Ham is a crying shame.
The acoustics were good for a tannoy at an athletics meeting, but for football supporters they were terrible. A really high roof, and then the away supporters in the two tiers split by those weird platforms. Then the home and away supporters blocked from each other in the lower tier by a big purple partition.
I can only assume the demographic has changed significantly too as the place was half empty at 85 minutes, even with them 4-0 up.
Man City have done quite a good job of converting an athletics stadium, and grounds like Derby are ‘new’ but have a good atmosphere, but West Ham was terrible. Everything appears to be designed to depart from Upton Park and prevent a traditional football match atmosphere as much as possible.
It’s not such an issue at Arsenal and Spurs, as they’ve always had quiet support, but spoiling West Ham is a crying shame.
Coop’s learning curve.
First Team Squad
I think youre spot on, we need him to come on when we've started to make space.
This kind of result adds pressure to the home games and we can't do well in all of those. I wonder if Cooper feels that Shelvey can't get through the 90 minutes yet after being out for a while with injury. If so that would make it a bit odd though that he replaced him with Ayew not another midfielder. TBH though with the amount of defending we've had to do in recent weeks, these results are always a possibility. We just have to move past it and crack on with the next one.
Grenville 1898
Nicolás Domínguez - King of the Press
sammy the snake
Jack Armstrong
Agree with all this. I know Forest supporters are excellent and will always be a notch louder but West Ham were noticeably struggling to get anything going bar the goals. Tourists have infilrated of course and look set to stay. Forest dont have this risk, we're a provincial club that will do well to stick to a smaller stadium with less capacity.
Id be seriously bringing back standing at West Ham, it's the only real option they have
TommyT
Jack Burkitt
i stand corrected, i just had clear visions of him constantly falling over in the corner by the Trent End and the Main Stand, seems like he was just really high up the pitch spooning a cross into the crowd or something
(Edit - and he didn't even make the bench when we the likes of Ipswich were putting 6 past us)
(Edit Edit - I do of course agree that unfortunately Neco seems to be total todd.)
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Joe Baker's Dog
Grenville Morris
I was looking forward to this as I really thought we had a chance. My eldest son & me had a couple of beers & a very decent burger in a food hall near Canary Wharf. Got to the ground around 2.30pm......searched twice....god knows why. Then climbed to row 73 - which was a mile from the pitch & up in the gods. Surprised to see so many gaps where there wasn't any seats. As for the game I thought both teams were poor. I could understand Steve Cooper bringing on Ayew for Shelvey but thought it a gamble. Wood had done sweet fa and I'd have taken him off & sent him back to Newcastle. If Shelvey does need to be nursed to full fitness then I'd have brought Danilo on.......perhaps someone to help Williams who struggled throughout. The run that led to their first goal should have stopped at source by Williams fouling whoever it was but he let whoever it was run and run. Our defending then became pathetic. I don't understand it.......West Ham weren't very good....we could have got a goal back....possibly. I left on 90 minutes like most Forest fans. I thought the atmosphere was not existant from the West Ham fans..........a new stadium and totally inadequate toilet facitlies. It looked like there was one small toilet block for 3000 away fans. Thankfully most results went our way and if we beat Everton next Sunday then there's a good chance of staying up........but our away form is shite.
let's face it , we made an average west ham looked like man city and fulham would have been 4-0 as well as they had 2 shots hit the bar and post. Something needs to be done about our away performance and cooper doesn't seemed to have a clue on how to improve it. Can't always be hoping to have the keeper save every shot and sneak in a goal somehow. Our midfield needs to be much more aggressive , only yates does it , freuler doesn't really dive into tackles and he is not aggressive , just stick a foot to try to nick the ball but doesn't do more than that , keane he's not. it's dissaponting to see the team so passive especially in an away game , just stood off the opposition. We all know worrall is good at acting as a training cone but does the midfield needs to do it as well ..
Caveman Ninja
Fucjin g wot karate
All part of Cooper's cunning plan for Moyes to remain in charge so that West Ham remain dirt. All about the bigger picture
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
People forget this because we won but the reverse fixture at the CG was exactly the same as that otherwise.
We won 1-0 through Taiwo and had a 2nd from Brennan disallowed by VAR, but then Henderson saved a penalty for them, they hit the woodwork twice then too, and I think there was another 2-3 decent saves Henderson made, and that was with Niakhate in the side as well. But we didn't look the better side.
One would expect that with Mark Warburton around they would be quite capable of attacking but less so of scoring loads from it and perhaps not so much at defending.
We were very poor, so slow and one dimensional. That’s to be expected though with the midfield 3 that we started, so that was disappointing that we lined up so negatively.
I really did think Neco had a bad game and was the worst player on the pitch, in the first half nearly every time he got the ball it resulted in a turnover. I think Moyes established him as a weak point and that is why he switched to a back 4 at halftime, so they had a left back that could overload that side.
I did think second half we looked the better team, that all went to shit when Shelvey went off and we all know what happened next.
Overall it was a very slow, sluggish, negative performance. West Ham were there for the taking, the crowd were on their backs every time we had the ball. Having said that I was sitting with the home fans who soon figured out we weren't up to much with a few shouts of "these lot are fackinnn shit".
My real concern is the last 4 games we have been below par, I know that includes 4 fantastic points vs Leeds and Man City but actual performance wise we have been not good at all.
I really did think Neco had a bad game and was the worst player on the pitch, in the first half nearly every time he got the ball it resulted in a turnover. I think Moyes established him as a weak point and that is why he switched to a back 4 at halftime, so they had a left back that could overload that side.
I did think second half we looked the better team, that all went to shit when Shelvey went off and we all know what happened next.
Overall it was a very slow, sluggish, negative performance. West Ham were there for the taking, the crowd were on their backs every time we had the ball. Having said that I was sitting with the home fans who soon figured out we weren't up to much with a few shouts of "these lot are fackinnn shit".
My real concern is the last 4 games we have been below par, I know that includes 4 fantastic points vs Leeds and Man City but actual performance wise we have been not good at all.
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MC Plantpot
First Team Squad
Hi mate.
Hope you’re well, it’s been a long time.
Just to let you know, Real Madrid will be back at the Graveyard next season.
Run along now, you’ve got the Inter-To-To-To Bob cup to try and get tickets for.