to be honest, although not helped by the awful officiating, i'd say the first half yesterday was our worst performance of the season. the decisions going against us sort of summed the whole day up really! poor poor poor. as you say warky, it happens and you can't play well every week - it just would have been nice to have one set of rules for both sides rather than separate ones...
Surely Garrido wasn't left out for tactical reasons or he'd have been on the bench at least. Can't say for certain, but I'd be pretty sure he was injured.
I'm glad you made that point. Even though we played poorly, it was still a close game. If the correct decisions had been reached I have no doubt we would of won the game, yet WHU were the better team. It's like being back to start of the season were we lose regardless of how well we play. I am starting to wonder if we will ever get a penalty, but in a way, to be outplayed most of the game and get bummed by the officials and still lose by a narrow margin is better than being thrashed. Clattenburg turned in possibly the worst referee performance I have seen since Tranmere Rovers game in L1, but it is easy to say so from here.
After seeing the replays, I think the ref got most right except for two: - The ref should of given a foul against Bassong or a Penalty against Reid, not let play go on as if nothing happened. - Tomkins clipped Kane and that should have been a Penalty, I'll admit that
west ham are not a good side. big sam thought they were 'brilliant' yesterday. if that was 'brilliant' then they are shocking. the reason they won the match was because a) we played terribly and b) they got all the major decisions go in their favour. it really was that simple. i thought they played ok - no different to what you'd expect really, but we were never at the races - how much of that was down to the early decision going against us we'll never know. i'd put it down to tiredness more than that and there we find yet another thing going in the hammers favour - they'd only played two games in a week - we'd played three. i said at the time arsenal had cheated - lets not forget it took two clubs to call that game off...
and therefore a red card too as it was a clear goal scoring chance. so that's three. oh, and how about all the shirt pulling going on in each area? i have no way of remembering but i'd say, based on the opening penalty decision, there should have been a further six penalties awarded during the match, unless of course, that pen should never have been given... oh, and how about the foul on tettey by cole? honestly, the list of aberrations is endless.
Totally agree with the idea of giving our regular starting 11 a bit of a break after yesterday and hope that CH adopts that policy.
I agree with OCF about the line-up, but would play Kane again, perhaps with Jackson in a 4-4-2. Butterfield is another possibility. That should be strong enough for Posh, though they'll be fired up for it.
Not sure if the Spuds would allow us to play Kane even though he is on a season long loan - I recall they prevented Naughton from playing last season even though he was with us for the full term. Not sure if we can recall Butterfield but I'd like to see him play if available.
All we need is Whittaker fit, so we can push the goal machine Martin into his naturally adopted striking berth Posh won't know what hit them
Great post - very rational and clearly expressed. I would like to see what new players we are going to get come to the club before the Newcastle match. If we dither around it may be too late to bring in reinforcements to help with the injury problems. Can't see either Morison or Kane play the lone striker role successfully so IMO a new striker asap is paramount.
Hughton has allured to this an article i have read on the beeb (probably knicked from bbc norfolk) as for the cup, don't we have Ward and Butterfield back now, or very shortly. they could be contention. Smith is back along with Francomb. Lots of options. it's a fine balancing act for the manager between giving the first teamers as rest vs getting some momentum and confidence back with a win.
team against Posh? Bunn, Tierney, R Martin, Barnett, Ward, E Bennet, Howson, Fox, Butterfield, Jackson, Kane 4-4-2.
