Pre-season training camps and fixtures (West Ham)

Lukerz

Thorn - think you're reading far too much into it. ;ok

So many factors affect pre-season. Fitness, knocks, fears of picking up an injury, no motivation, several changes, kids playing, style of the pitch, the amount of training work done on the day of the game (it's not like they're having days off then playing, they're playing straight after a session or two of training), slight tactical experiments etc etc etc

Wouldn't worry about it. Our defending yesterday was Sunday league, but we won't defend that sloppily when the season kicks off.

We'll play our best XI v City and hope not to get thrashed and pick up no new injuries.

Just a quick scan round of yesterdays pre-season games highlights the point.

St Pauli 4-2 Stoke
Burton 2-1 Leicester
Port Vale 1-1 WBA
Stuttgart 3-3 Huddersfield
Bayern 0-2 Liverpool

Completely random.

You could easily say "we drew 3-3 with a 4th division German side" yet put in good performances and results against Werder Bremen, a respectable Bundesliga team?

IronHerb

Look at last nights results. Leicester lost at Burton, West Brom drew at Port Vale, Stoke lost at St Pauli. So that's 4 teams in the relegation battle then.

thornburyiron

Agree with most of what you're saying Luke but it's you're last two paragraphs which give me concern. Defending sloppily against their equivalent of Hartlepool because of trying to avoid injury or a bit of fatigue is one thing but having virtually no cohesion or apparent idea of where everyone is or what they should be doing is another. Hope it does all miraculously click against Man U.
Going up against City who are miles above anything we've played thus far hoping not to get thrashed doesn't fill me with confidence.

IronHerb

thorn,

It's you that is "hoping not to get thrashed". I don't believe for one moment the team will go into the game thinking that.

And what if we should happen to win the game, does that make us favourites for the Prem?

thornburyiron

Iron herb I was referring to baracks point re hoping not to get thrashed. I'm not suggesting the team would but with one week to go should we be hoping not to get thrashed by another PL team?
If we win I'll be delighted and hope that our performance was good and a big improvement on what we've seen so far. My concern this pre season is that we don't seem to have been able to iron out the problems we had last season and to some extent the season before with our defence and midfield.
Last season the top 5 or 6 were all playing at their expected level and most of them ran us ragged and scored hatfuls. Most of them have improved their attacking options.

grey_til_I_dye

Last season the top 5 or 6 were all playing at their expected level and most of them ran us ragged and scored hatfuls

Not really accurate.

Chelsea managed 2 in both games. Spurs managed 3 and 0, Man U 1 and 2

Fair enough, Citeh did us 3 and 5, Liverpool 2 and 4 and Arsenal 5 and 3.

So, rather more of a mixed bag than you seem to recall.

tomkinsworldclass

Pre-season is all about fitness; cohesion, unity and tactics are all largely irrelevant. Yesterday was a good work out and an entertaining game. If we had 11 on the pitch we would've won comfortably but being down to 10 actually made it a better work out than expected. Man city is an interesting game and it will be interesting to see how Slaven lines up but the only thing that matters is the first game of the season. Pre-season results mean nothing. V Man city I would actually like us to experiment to potentially see how a different tactical approach could work in preparation for when we play then in the league as MCFC will play how they always play under pep, so why not try something different?

jay_in_cpt

Most important thing for me is 1st not picking up any injuries , regaining match fitness and results follow..
The West Ham way ;wink ;ok

OldCastleSwift

tomkinsworldclass said:

If we had 11 on the pitch we would've won comfortably

We were 2-1 down when it was 11 v 11, so I'm not so confident thaty we would have

IronHerb

Reid did really well then considering he was sent off 10 minutes previous to our second goal. ;hmm

MunichHammer

Bayern Munich are currently losing 2-0 to Naples. Oh dear, their pre-season form is bad, they are going to get relegated. ;wahoo

baracks_a_hammer

It will be a completely different story for us when we line up at old Trafford

grey_til_I_dye

Respective squads for today's game:

West Ham United: Hart, Adrian, Zabaleta, Byram, Masuaku, Fonte, Collins, Ogbonna, Rice, Obiang, Makasi, Noble, Fernandes, Snodgrass, Arnautovic, Holland, Ayew, Chicharito, Martinez

Manchester City: Ederson, Grimshaw, Muric, Walker, Danilo, Kompany, Stones, Sterling, Aguero, Mangala, De Bruyne, Sane, Silva, Bernardo, Fernandinho, Roberts, Otamendi, Jesus, Zinchenko, Toure, Adarabioyo, Diaz, Foden

http://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2017/august/03-august/manchester-city-v-west-ham-united-all-you-need-know

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Oh, and Aguero.

And De Bruyne.

And Silva.

And Sane.

And Jesus...

eskimoking

Is Cresswell injured as well now? No Lanzini, Kouyate, Antonio, Sakho, Carroll. Still think our squad looks light considering the injuries.

OldCastleSwift

Cresswell has a 'minor' injury according to something I read and is back at Rush Green with the other walking wounded.

Our midfield does look particularly weak, IMO.

That said, I'm looking forward to watching this later ;wahoo

OldCastleSwift

Cresswell has a 'minor' injury according to something I read and is back at Rush Green with the other walking wounded.

Our midfield does look particularly weak, IMO.

That said, I'm looking forward to watching this later ;wahoo

EXETERHAMMER

You can say that again Swift

Lukerz

Reid suspended?

They actually enforce bans for pre season red cards?

Jeez

grey_til_I_dye

Lukerz

I guess it makes a kind of sense, otherwise there's no real deterrent.

Just makes the ref's prima donna behaviour more absurd.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Think Reid has a knock and is set to face a team behind closed doors for the U23s tomorrow along with sakho

I think

Yeoldhammer

Half the team out before the season even begins the West Ham curse ;weep

MrsGrey

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years said:

Think Reid has a knock and is set to face a team behind closed doors for the U23s tomorrow along with sakho

I think

Champo, no - definitely suspended (as per club's match preview) ... hence getting game time (as you say) with the U23s as he needs matches to build up his fitness ;ok

Lukerz

So what do we reckon we'll see today?

Hart
Zabaleta - Fonte - Ogbonna
Byram - Noble - Obiang - Masuaku
Ayew - Arnautovic
Chicharito

Got to get at least 60-70 mins out of that XI. Then the likes of Collins, Fernandes, Snodgrass, Martinez etc from the bench.

MrsGrey

Be interesting to see how long Chicarito gets - 45 mins?

(Making my confident prediction that he would start in our early Prem games look ridiculous now ;doh.)

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

Mrs G,

I think Hernandez will start against Man United. He hasn't had much of a pre-season, but that's because he was still playing competitive football over the summer.

I don't think his fitness will have dropped enough to delay his start of the season overly, and we need him if Sakho isn't going to be ready, so I think Bilic will risk it.

alderz

I reckon today will be something like:

Hart; Zabaleta Fonte Ogbonna Masuaku; Noble Obiang; Snodgrass Ayew Arnautovic; Hernandez

I think it's unlikely he'll switch away from a back 4

FlorinRaduclious

I agree with that alderz, Slav's gone with a back four all pre-season as far as I'm aware so it looks like that is his intentions for the season. He's going to want to play his (as close as possible due to injuries) best 11 in prep for the season's start. Give them game time, and especially with the 'newbies' get them used to playing with our stalwarts. To the point I would expect your 11 to be bang on.

I personally (if I was looking at getting a 'result' from this game as opposed to 'fitness') would start Fernandes over Ayew as the ACM as he is more defensively minded than Ayew so our 4231 could flow to a 433 when defensive against such opposition, but we will see.

Looking forward to watching it, hopefully seeing a top end performance. coyi ;scarf

(Also considering we have AC, Sakho, Reid, Kouyate, Antonio, Feghouli, Lanzini, and Cresswell all out injured, it's a decent 11, could not have said that a couple of years ago in such circumstances). ;ok

MrsGrey

Jorderz_Slaven_A_Good_Time said:

Mrs G,

I think Hernandez will start against Man United.

Me too ;hmm

(Jorderz, I was puzzled by your comment until I realised that despite meaning to type 'wouldn't start' in my previous comment, it came out as 'would' ;lol ;doh ;wahoo )

baracks_a_hammer

Lukerz said:

Reid suspended?

They actually enforce bans for pre season red cards?

Jeez

I thought this at the time - is he also banned for Man Utd? I.e. three games?

grey_til_I_dye

baracks

Well , it was 2 yellows, so would only be a 1 game ban, but I don't think friendlies count towards PL games anyway.