Why pick 22 games? Why “since the win against Norwich”. A casual look reveals that if you don’t be so arbitrary and just extend it to the calendar year you get 4 more wins (more than double the current total), 2 draws and a defeat 7 wins, 6 draws and 16 defeats in 29 still isn’t fantastic. But it seems very deliberate to draw a line after a good run of form. Apart from (I guess) highlighting that our poor run now extends to 22 games? Still seems a bit like cherry picking I still think it isn’t good enough now and it is probably time for a change. But I do get a little confused about how the number of games when judging our form is decided (Twitter is a big one for this as well)
I think its fair enough to highlight the poor run. No, it doesn't affect the table, no it isn't the same squad, but it's still the same league and its still indicating the general trend which is towards relegation unfortunately. I haven't had the chance to watch today's match yet, just seen the highlights but the thing that worries me most is the ongoing lack of form of key players JWP and KWP. If Ralph isn't getting the best out of those guys as a baseline, its clear a change is needed.
Fair enough mate, yeah not watching really helps to be honest, maybe you should try it. Last game I watched was Chelsea and we were bloody marvelous, maybe I need to watch more games, we might win more! Bournemouth is on Amazon so will def be watching that, if we win you can all thank me(and also moan at me for not watching more games)! You have every right to be overly negative, we have been ****e too often in the last year or so, not good enough. I'm a very positive guy so always want to give these things a bit more time, let the players gel etc. Ralph is definitely a good manager/coach but things aren't working at present, but after the Chelsea game we were all raving about the last few performances, surely we can get back there and who knows maybe this point is the turning point, excuse the pun! Oh ****, I've mentioned puns!
I think without a quality striker and a back-up quality defensive midfielder to cover Romeo Lavia we are going nowhere but down to the championship. Bring on January, and I hope / pray this happens. Once that stronger backbone exists a new manager will then only come in who believes in the short to medium term opportunity that could then exist? Would anybody come before who believes in the project unless they are just picking up a wage packet? I also hope Che / Adam start scoring a few. Che has missed a few sitters. Keep thinking of Nigel Adkins and his ‘hard work beats talent’ mantra but when you have Rickie L scoring ten a penny then you are going to have a easier ride. Those additions might not be enough but it would be a definite step in the right direction. Sorry, seem to be asking more questions than giving any answers.
We can't afford to drop our captain, when he is about the only leader we have left. Last season Romeu, Bednarek, and even Redmond were all senior players who would shout instructions to others. They're all gone. Who now takes on that role? They're all either too young or too new to the team. We can't go up against a very fired-up Bournemouth side, with AMN, who's only started twice, and Diallo, who plays like he's stoned. Those two together will get absolutely dominated. We need JWP for his passion and his sh*t-housery, if nothing else.
Harsh on Adam Armstrong. Thought he was very good yesterday. Not only was he difficult for them to defend against, but he was by far our best counter-attacking player. He can turn defence into attack in a couple of seconds. Just give him the ball and he motors down the wing. You give the ball to anyone else in defence and they f*cking dilly-dally with it just outside the box, lose possession, and we get put under pressure straight away again. Or like yesterday, we concede a goal.
That makes a change, it was us that had a bad day at the office. Any result we get is down to the opposition not playing well.
A Armstrong and Che both have one significant flaw as strikers. They don’t score goals. Apart from that, they’re both a bit of a handful for defenders, but…
A.Armstrong is playing as more of a winger this season, to be fair to him. Only lower-half wingers who scored more than 5 goals last season were Zaha, Raphinia, and Harrison. But yeah, he's still a sh*t finisher. Less pressure on him now though to be THE goalscorer. Just needs to be one of half a dozen players who contribute at least 5 goals over the season.
It was my first game since the Chelsea game and a few things stood out to me. The complete lack of excitement or belief from the crowd, pretty much throughout. OWTS only got a few outings and pretty muted versions. There wasn't much in the way of booing or shouting or fight from the crowd. Just I think resignation to the inevitable, I was part of that so not having a go, just an observation, and not surprising given our performances and form. Not for one minute of that game did I think we would score or go on to win. Our 'good chances' that fell to Che were not the type he scores many of (incidentally I couldn't help but think back to last season and they were exactly the type of chance that Broja thrived off), and I thought Che had a really good battling game, but when he is the one winning the ball and keeping the defenders busy with his strength you need a goalscorer to work off him and we do not have that. When we had a short spell of sustained attacking play in the second half where we threw a few crosses into the box...we had one player in there in Che. When West Ham were getting crosses into the box following sustained pressure they had 4 or 5. How many years have we bemoaned the lack of goals from the midfield? Well now we have two strikers that don't score either so how the **** are we going to win games? We will need to produce a load of chances and good ones, and creating good chances is also something we are not good at. This was also the first time I've seen KWP looking average. Even during our long extended awful runs in the past KWP has been our one shining light but he looked a long way short of his best out there. JWP looked lost and we so regularly afforded Rice acres of space to dictate the play not to mention the red carpet we rolled out for him for his goal. Salisu lost all composure and confidence when ABK went off, so lets hope he's not out for long!! It wasn't all bad, there was fight and we had some okay spells of passing and possession. We didn't give up when West Ham equalised. Holding on for a draw is something we rarely do, though IMO the fact that we held on to a point was more to do with West Hams profligacy in front of goal. I hope the board are prepared to spend some more money in January as we need goals in this team and it doesn't look like it can wait until the summer!
I keep hoping that if he and/or Che could learn to just relax a little at the key moment, maybe the goals will come. Probably a forlorn hope, that.
Maybe if we man marked Rice, instead of him finding space without having to break sweat, we would have had more control/chance/ideas/creativity. Lyanco or Djepeno given the instruction to stay with him would have given us a chance of cutting their creativity at source. Is trying to neutralise their best player not in Ralph's book of tactics?
Would say it’s actually a pretty aggressive move as it will mean one of your defensive players is quite far forward at all times, also makes them have to go long a lot more if the supply into the midfield is cut off
Scored from outside the area. Also, there were a lot of West Ham players wandering into our box constantly. If you chase one individual around, you just make it easier for the others to find space. I know what you're saying though. it was criminal to give him that much time and space to shoot.
