I thought Leitner was pretty good today, to be fair. We were schooled in how to bully and frustrate today. Completely dominated in midfield and rhythm regularly broken by little fouls, nudges and more than a bit of experience.
Agree completely. West Ham, to their credit knew exactly what to do to unhinge our play. 1: Take out Zimmerman as early as possible; 2: Thwart Cantwell, which Noble did cleverly; 3: Press the line against Pukki. We were naive and some of our cute play led too many times to goal scoring opps for them, Ho hum,we move on. It was never going to be easy was it.
Zimmerman is on crutches, wearing a protective boot. Hanley is 1-2 weeks from returning to training. Might be reliant on Amadou.
Coasted it in the end, probably would've had a few more goals but for Krul. Should definitely have had a penalty for Haller, but I think whoever was on VAR duty was smoking crack a the time. I guess it 'evened it up' for the yellow Haller didn't get in the first half.
Never a penalty! Clear dive, was a bit shocked about the amount of diving actually, going down very very softly for players so much bigger. The coasting was just us going for broke and so making it very easy for you to hit us on the break. Right result though, fair play.
Mmm maybe, but had Zimmerman not been taken out of the game when it was still fairly evens, then the game might have played out somewhat differently? We learn from this and move on! Well played Hammers, you know your salt.
rubbish, the replay showed his leg come across and make contact, even one of your own fans on here has said it was a clear pen. If it had been given against us I would've bitched about the challenge, rather than the ref.
Just on the train back now. We didn't look good lots of sloppy passes , Buendia looked off the pace. Aarons was lively but the long ball to him was predictable. West ham scored from their first chance Zimmermann got taken out of the game and we looked a bit stunned. Cantwell smashed one off the crossbar we came close with a header but looked poor first half. Drmic missed a sitter late on off the post. Amadou did ok when he came on , if Godfrey gets suspenjured then we are doomed. Horrendous luck losing 3 of our 4 centre backs but we live to fight another day . Good day out in my old stomping ground with the kids and the stadium is fantastic. Going to Man city in 2 weeks with JR fan may have to have a beer or 2 before the game.
I disagree. The ref saw it and so did VAR. It’s the fact he went down softly that’s the problem, not the contact. He had also lost control of the ball completely. And Yarmalenko dived twice as well. Like I said though, made no difference to the result which was the right one either way.
Agree with all this. The additional problem with losing Zimmermann is now it looks like a lengthy lay off and he really showed his class in the brief spell he was on. Feels like a double blow. A terrific block and then he was even putting in a big tackle to cover Lewis while injured! I fear you might need more than just one or two.
Looks like teams have sussed us out now, simply hospitalise our centre backs. Klose out for up to 12 months Zimmermann having a scan and looks to be out for a while too. Amadou looked good at the back for a midfielder . That's 10 conceded in 4 with Man city next so just once I would like to see us park the bus , we won't match them going toe to toe . On a few occasions both Max and Lewis got caught high up the field and we only had 2 players in our half as West ham went on the counter. We need some sort of plan B .