Are you telling me you think he's played well or effectively? Look I love the guy, but he hasn't played consistently well for over a year now. Back when Le Tiss was fading, I'd have duelled at dawn with anyone who dared criticise the guy, but that was a combination of youth and nostalgia. I have learnt now and can look dispassionately at a player. That tells me more that we haven't played great in February rather than Rickie has played well (other than one half against Fulham). 3 of those 4 were in the same game - the Fulham one, where he played well for a half. The other was a free kick, which he can still do. So I'm afraid that stat is at best misleading.
Only listened to the match, obviously not happy but didn't expect much tbh. We know the high press is countered by hoofball. We did score and with 20 shots on goal didn't sound toothless. Questions to be asked of defence and ultimately poch. We didn't lose by 1 goal, to ask a strike force to score 4 is a lot.
Because we never change our approach. Don't get me wrong, his faith in the system is admirable, it is a good system. But dejan still out, our best defender. And we don't adapt to counter them. It hasn't worked in the past against teams like this.
We have an ambitious style of football which is admirable, we just don't *quite* have the players right now to match the ambition. Sometimes we'll pull it off, sometimes it won't quite work. It didn't quite work today, but we nearly pulled it off. Our play is better than our players right now, that's evident. But that's a great place to build from.
We haven't got enough back up it's as simple as that. We don't really have a game changer either. Our squad is so thin it is crazy.
P.S. Enjoyed the West Ham fans attempting to goad us with "Is this a library?" when they were the home team. We just laughed at them and you could see the confusion on their faces.
Very disappointing, especially for those like you who went to London. Great support, and at least that linesman got his comeuppance with that fall second half. Chin up mate, we play a football team next week.
Not seen any of the game at all, but did listen to it all on the commentary. Sounded like we played very well (going forward), up until it came to actually shooting. Can't say that I'm particularly bothered, or that I got particularly frustrating or disappointed whilst listening. We're not going anywhere in the league. It's just nice to hear us seemingly put in a decent performance away from home. I think the game did highlight some shortcomings of ours, but in terms of progressing, that's a good thing. One hopes we will address those in the summer transfer window. Most people on here seem to agree that we could do with a 20+ goal a season, even if that has to be at Rickie's expense. Had we had one of those today, then maybe one or two more of shots would have hit the target. I think a lot of people also agree that we could do with strengthening defensively (both the first XI, and what we have in reserve). At the end of the day, even away from home, I'm not sure teams should really be conceding three goals to a team with Carlton Cole as their only striker, and no real creative no.10 type. And then there's the fact that we didn't have that right winger option (as I've said since day one of this season) to come off the bench and take advantage of George McCartney, one of the worst LBs in the league imo (although he is beaten in the pecking order by one of West Ham's other starters today, in that nowadays Matt Taylor is even worse, when he gets a run out in that position - but I assume it was McCartney playing there today). I've been the same since the very start of December. So long as we put the performances in, I'm not overly fussed about the results. A season to sit back and watch football, rather than get all wrapped up in the scorelines and the league table points column.
For me the big plus was Gaston coming on and looking a compete cut above. Looked like picking up where he left off and IMHO will be pushing Davis or SRL to start, depending on if JRod can get the nod to lead the line.
Sad to lose.but agree with the other posters re gaston.we looked so much more dangerous when he came on. Gave us something that we sometime lack in attack
Yeah Gaston looked good from what I saw.Quality bit of skill apart from the finish. And thats our problem... Finishing. For all our good work we are just not good enough in front of goal. I don't know what the answer is, a 20 goal a season player would be great but every team in the world is after one of them. Rooney has eleven so far and look how much UTD are paying him to stay! Maybe Gaston can be the creator and SRL can be on the end of them as oppose to having to create as well. He is still a class finisher. I recall Gary Neville saying after the City away game last year, that it doesnt matter what league you play in, if you know where the goal is you will always score. If someone can keep putting them on a plate and that is all SRL has to worry about then we will score more.
Gastón RamÃrez was very good when he came on, actively took the side up a notch. As ever, our spells of dominance were punctuated with goals on the counter. Frustrating.
