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Comments
Some good quotes from Potter about actually improving the squad you have rather than focusing solely on signing new players
"If you look back over a 12-month period up to that point, the team had conceded a lot of goals which is an indication that, maybe, something wasn't quite right on a cultural or foundation level.
This bit worried me a bit as quite possibly it could be something on a cultural level? But it's probably more likely that the defenders are not as good as hoped.
Low expectation allows you time, support & patience. High expectations allows you none of those.
He has to change the culture, style of play, get wins, without having lots of money to do it. The players he has means he has decided a back 3/5 is the best, but no matter what side he puts out, there is an issue in one area of the 11. Yesterday, it was Bowen as a striker & the midfield. If he makes Bowen a right winger again, it will be the midfield. If he switches to a back 4, it will be the defence.
I back him but it’s a tough gig to get right & avoid the sack.
You've probably all seen this, one way or another. (it's based on a Talksport interview)
But just posting it anyway.
Brady said - "West Ham is not a club that panics about its managers. We tend to stick with them, tend to support people, stick with them and see it through."
So, for me, I think that's a good thing in principle. No knee-jerk reactions etc. BUT...BUT
It's only a good thing if you think you made the right appointment in the first place, otherwise it's just stubbornly sticking by a bad decision.
I like that he is a builder rather than a simple buyer but you do need a strong core to build on and we don't have that, so in my view his success will depend on making two good signings at midfield and centre back before the window closes.
The mentality needs to be that was not good enough for West Ham & we need to put it right Friday, without fail. Not ‘we have ages & it’s still early’.
Nobel Peace Prize doesn't get a lot of betting action and Trump's odds could easily be shortened by a single sizeable bet
He's joint favourite at 250-1 with Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Putin opponent Alexei Navalny who died in prison last year
More likely her than him although just as likely someone we've never heard of
He can’t have too long to sort. He had a whole 6 months with no pressure. He’s had a whole pre-season. Yes, he hasn’t maybe got the best players but he knew that when he joined. He didn’t have the best players at his first three clubs but found ways of getting tunes out of them.
Second half it fell apart because of not doing the basics, defensively, & the atmosphere/adrenaline took care of the rest. Let's be honest, aside of their three goals, they only created one other chance all game (Hermansen save). We lost because two crosses came into our box & we didn't win the header - we didn't win many all game.
That is simple for Potter to analyse in terms of why we didn't draw the game 0-0 (at worst), which would have been a decent result. We weren't outplayed, cut apart, overrun, slow, poor at passing etc. This was not boys against men. We lost two key headed duals.
There was not much in it. 3-0 makes it seem like a battering, it wasn't in terms of the game itself, but Aguerd/AWB/Paqueta not winning headers (also the closing down of the cross) was what cost us any points.
Potter won't lose sight of that. We, as fans, sensationalise a 3-0 'thrashing' to a side who has just come up (albeit the whole 11 was full of players who didn't play for them in the Champ last year). Potter will see it as two key moments of defensive concentration (game was over by the third) causing lots of good work in the first half & pre-season to be undone.
They key is we don't repeat those errors Friday. That's Potters job. You always know a manager who is a dead-man walking, the sides continue to make the same errors every week. We haven't lost 3-0 once under him until Saturday. Hopefully it's a one-off & not a deterioration.
Lobbing Mavro in for one of the back three would be a start. The rest is about mentality/concentration/intensity. Lots of those players ether have or don't.
This side is used to losing - they got thrashed under Lop & continued to lose under Potter (albeit narrowly).
It's no surprise that we are weak, mentally, when we go 1-0 down & switch off during games. The confidence of the side is low. It has to be after a year of mainly losing, many of which were proper thrashings.