My friend is a West Ham season ticket holder, and his dad was unable to attend yesterday so I went in his place. Nearly bored to sleep watching Hammers and City slug out a nil nil draw, which has to be seen as a great result for the home team. My question is this: would Saints fans be happy to sacrifice free flowing, attacking football, for something more Allardyce like, if it meant we would almost certainly not get relegated?
Personally I still think we can stay up and play our football. Sometimes though you have to adapt for certain games. I reckon there would be far more people baying for Nigel's blood if were in the bottom half and playing hoofball!
A little less excitment in away games, yes, I could live with that. I love our philosophy, but it has become very damaging.
Well considering I was laying into Sunderland and Stoke a fair bit yesterday evening, I'll use them as my example, rather than West Ham. I want to see one of two things when I go to watch my team play, be it Saints or Hampshire. Ideally, a win. But if not that, then at least some entertainment. Both would obviously be fantastic, as indeed these last two years have been. I don't actually care who that win, or entertainment, comes against. Just so long as it happens. At no point did I walk out of L1 match after a win, not feeling happy, just because it wasn't Man Utd that we'd beaten. So no, I wouldn't want to watch Sunderland each week, even if they do have over double our points tally. It's says a lot about the current state of football, and in particular the PL, if simply being clear of the bottom three is enough to tick your box. You're paying £400 a season for that??!! I would much rather get relegated, and then compete and win matches down in the Championship the following season, than just keep the points and clean sheets ticking over, with almost no wins and almost no goals. One win in 17 games for Sunderland. Roughly the same for Stoke, I believe. 13 shots on target so far this for Sunderland. Why would any fan want that, even if it does mean not getting relegated?
I would sacrifice free flowing football to get a couple of back to back results as we need to lift the pressure. We can return to our roots once we have a margin of safety. In fact, the team would play with more freedom with a couple of wins under their belts. We mustn't underestimate the demoralising effect on the team of working all week and then failing.
With the team built the way it has been maybe we have no option but to attack. Just feel that our back line needs the courage to go higher up the park to cut down space for the enemy to utilize against us.
How about a bit of needs must for 2 or 3 years to establish ourselves as a premier league team before appointing a manager in a few years that can add some flow and flare to the solid foundations Allardyce has built? It's not pretty at times I agree. But the fact is, the way we set up enabled us to get what could be a crucial point against one of the best sides in europe. A point that could well be crucial come the seasons end. I have supported West Ham for twenty years and i have been to hundreds of games. I have seen plenty of heroic defeats. But performances like yesterday, where we actually have something to show for our effort are most welcome. We are traditionally an attacking, passing team and we are proud of that, I am sure that the pretty stuff will return eventually but a few seasons of grinding out premiership survival isn't going to wipe out 100 years of tradition and history so I can live with it for the foreseeable future no problem. If you stick with your current philosophy of simply out passing and out scoring teams, then that is admirable, but it could turn out to be a little unwise IMO.
Morning Trixter I suppose it's just personal choice. If you can live with it and it keeps you up so be it. Issue will be if you start losing then we will see how quickly the fans turn.
Well given our run of games over the next 7-8 weeks I think our fans are reasonable enough to accept that points will probably be few and far between. The fact is, against teams of similar quality to our own, the wins will be fairly regular with the way Sam sets us up. So yes if we start regularly losing to teams around us and below us, the fans won't accept the style we have adopted. But we have become very tough to beat so this is very unlikely to happen. I do find it hard to believe that anyone would say they would rather go down playing the "right way" thank stay up with a bit of long ball and scrapping. The championship looks a nightmare this year and next year will probably be even worse. No guarantees for anyone to bounce straight back so I will accept the brand of football for now.
I said we should play more a more defensively solid side against Spurs to counter their strength down the wings, we didn't, and we lost. So yeah I do agree that we should be more pragmatic against certain teams and I'm sure every West Ham fan who watched that dire game will be delighted with the point.
Guarantee that watching us grind out a 1-0 would leave everyone happier than watching us play attacking football and losing 4-0.
Saints used to have a good rep in the premiership and old league1 for exciting footall, the 80s team was great and during the 90s we had Le Tiss to add that something special. I do not think our current team could grind out a 1-0 win, our players are more attack minded and that is the way Saints will play. We will lose alot of points because we can not play ugly in the last 15 minutes
haha! Why on earth does she want to go and see a West Ham game? I mean, I don't mind going on a free ticket, and draining East London of larger and pies, but I'd rather watch Saints anyday.
I was at the match yesterday and I thought west ham got their tactics spot on against city starving us of room to play the ball in between the lines for Tevez/Dzeko/Balotelli to run on to and a draw was probably a fair result. Wasn't the worst 0-0 I've ever seen either
