Lets take some Libertys! Swans away Match Thread (3.3.18)
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https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/former-west-ham-defender-jose-fonte-loses-80-and-gives-away-a-penalty-on-dalian-yifang-debut-a3780806.html
West Ham has been like this for years, so what are the factors involved? I'll just put a few out there, feel free to add to them.
Ambition
Ownership/Financial commitment
Manager
Coaching staff
Stadium
Training ground/Medical facilities
Academy
Players respect for the club
Players respect for each other
Location
Club name
There must be a common thread running through West Ham that explains it.
As Wombat said, getting turned over by Liverpool 1-4 (twice this season) is understandable if not acceptable, but to lose by the same score at Swansea is an utter disgrace. Everybody involved with West Ham should be hanging their heads in shame tonight.
As an aside, David Sullivan is apparently a billionaire which means he is worth at least £1,000,000,000. If he himself spent £100,000,000 on some decent midfielders/defenders he'd still have £900,000,000 left.
I know that's a little simplistic but really, how much money do you need?
Not a happy bunny. ;angry
IF we do go down we can all reflect on how sensible the January transfer window was when several clubs around us realised how important it was to stay up and made provisions to improve their chances of doing so.
I personally only expect the owners to handle the clubs finances in a dilligent manner. I don’t want them putting money in, and on the same note don’t want them taking money out.
Conflicting views!
However, I do think we need a sense of perspective now. Before yesterday, we'd taken 20 points from our last 13. Before Liverpool, it was 20 from 12 games. That's top 8 form. We've got two massive games to come at home, and of all our defeats under Moyes, only one has been at the London Stadium. So we can back ourselves to take points off Southampton and Stoke. We also have a couple of far easier fixtures; Burnley, Everton and Leicester, which are far easier because none of those sides have any motivation to take points. Won't mean we just walk up there and win, but they will be much easier games to negotiate than yesterday's. So that's 5 games from our remaining 9 which if we take 7 points from we're going to be in a very good position. If we take any more than 7 we will be all but safe.
Yesterday was abject. There were factors that made it the perfectly cliched 'bad day at the office' - the illness to Ogbonna, the injury to Collins, the injury to Reid and then having to play a defence of full-backs with a kid - however that doesn't excuse the fact that the likes of Zabaleta, Evra, Cresswell, Kouyate, Noble, Lanzini etc should have stepped up to the plate to ease the burden on Rice and Byram, but nobody believed we would get anything from that game once we went 1-0 down and that was the issue. Swansea fully deserved their win. Seven home wins on the bounce? They are now no mugs, but the manner of it was inexcusable.
I know it's easy to get wrapped up by the negativity at the club at the moment. Protests, marches, the board, the window, two 4-1 losses etc, but I do think, as far as the team goes, we need to be calm and keep some perspective. Things will look a lot better if we beat Burnley next weekend and we will only then need 5 points from our last 8. Perfectly gettable. Luckily for us, other than Swansea, every result went our way yesterday. So we got away with it to a degree. Hopefully Brighton and Palace also pick up nothing over the next two days.
I have been guilty of spitting feathers the last couple of weeks and this season in general, but the next 9 games are going to be crucial and we need to put yesterday's performance behind us and influence the games we can coming up.
COYI
Teams like Burnley , Brighton Bournemouth etc seem to fight and don’t get smashed on a regular basis.
The whole club has turned into a complete circus now though , a club needing to survive buys Hugill and Evra. That says it all to me.
A complete lack of ambition and leadership.
This season has been built upon two main things / the failure to get carvalho, followed even more remarkably by the failure to get dendoncker. The release of Fonte adds even more to the circus act it has now become.
Moyes has got to be careful now. Four of the disgraceful capitulations have been on his watch - Everton, Newcastle, Brighton and yesterday. And that’s not even counting the abject surrenders in both cups
Two defeats on the bounce doesn't really count for "on a regular basis", I shouldn't think.
I don't think we are going down. The players, however, are low on confidence and some of them have only just come back from injury.
On the plus side, Antonio has now scored his second goal in as many games.
We were off to a bad start with Collins and Oggy out so losing Reid was precisely the last thing we needed. Had we had either of those they'd have been picking up Van der Hoorn not Rice who is still a few years off from being the finished article.
Noble was shackled once he got the yellow card, with the way the ref was behaving if Noble had given someone a hard stare he'd have been off. Kouyate is Jekyll and Hyde (a bit like the team as a whole) but we miss Obiang.
Evra clearly isn't working, thankfully Arthur is only banned for one more game. Antonio needs to start next week against Burnley, maybe Zabaletta could do with a rest against Saints with Antonio and Arthur as WBs.
I don't know what's going on with Hernandez, Antonio and Lanzini but they didn't seem to be communicating.
It's not all doom and gloom, as Scarlett O'Hara said "After all, tomorrow is another day".
Once Masuaku is back I hope Moyes goes with:
Antonio - Collins - Ogbonna - Cresswell - Masuaku
Evra and Zab just don’t cut it, not in this side at the moment, at the same time.
Zab has been better as a WB than a FB, I think he just needs a rest. I'd prefer Antonio further forward but for the next couple of games he has to start at WB
One of those 'look at me I'm being passionate' displays.
Apart from that the game passed him by once again.
He wasn't alone though. Adrian, Evra, Zab and Kouyate were also very poor.
Only ray of light was when Antonio came on.
He might be "Billy Bonds" fit (running around in shorts in the snow) but perhaps he'd be better for a rest
Moyes also needs to look at himself as well as the players, although Reid's injury did not help..
A poor day for our traveling fans thru those freezing conditions, they deserve better than that display...
This has left us with two senior CMs - Noble and Kouyate - in the squad, both of who have had average seasons at best, but neither of which can be dropped or rested because their only back up is Cullen or, at a push, Zabaleta.
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail, and we didn't prepare for our relegation fight in January at all.
What is good is we get to see Moyes at work now as this is the situation a manager shows their calibre. He needs pick up a team who have been battered in time for the next match and find a way to plug gaps through injury. I think he will be up to it and to be fair we need him to as we cant get to our last few matches needing these points in my view.
Referring to your final paragraph.
When you look at the signings made - hugill and two short term stop gaps to make up the numbers, in my opinion this was not a window with the aim of pulling clear quickly and aspiring for an 8-10 finish. It was more like a window designed to prepare for potential life in the championship