First of all great result last night and no one could have predicted that apart from me of course in a previous thread! Make no mistake we thrashed West Ham and in the process doubled them in the league this season, the last time we doubled them was back in 1976/77. A great result and a lot of credit to PJ and the boys for that performance. Over 20,000 crowd so that is also encouraging. The other great thing about last nights results was that the teams below us and around us failed to pick up points apart from Donny who got a draw. This now leaves us 7 points off the trap door and has improved our GD by a good margin. However this does not disguise the fact that we have failed miserably in bringing in any reinforcements to our defence and that is down to poor management from Clegg and in part Jewell. The result last night doesn't suddenly erase the dismal record of defeats that we have suffered and lets be fair the players owed us a decent performance. The real acid test for me will be the result against Coventry on Saturday. Anything other than a resounding 3 points and we will be back in the mire so this really is a must win game and we can't afford to **** about! We will have to rely on loans now and I just hope that we bring in at least 1 Centre back and a decent Right Back as a minimum. Failure to do so will leave us exposed to more of the same shocking defending that we have witnessed for most of the season. The amazing statistic that stands out for me so far this season is that if we had managed to win all the games that we were leading, we would have been in the play off positions by now! That just goes to show the number of points we have thrown away through bad defending. We all know whats to be done and I just hope that Clegg can pull some deals together in the loan window.
Looking at our next 6 fixtures, if we continue to play as we have for the last few games (albeit not winning) they are definitely winnable. I can easily see us picking up ten points from these 6 games, which will then hopefully move us up the table. In fact, and i know this will seem barmy considering our current record, but we do have quite a decent run in to the end of the season now. Out of the remaining 18 games, the only games where i can honestly say that we won't get anything from, is the Southampton away fixture, and Birmingham at home (these are the two standout teams left to play) If we have, say, an average end to the season and win 6, draw 6 and lose 6, that'll give us 55 points, which will be a low mid-table finish. The 6 games which we should be winning, are Coventry (a) Bristol City, Posh, Barnsley, Millwall (all home) and then Donny away. We just have to keep the confidence going, and hope that we don't have injuries or suspensions. We now need to keep a settled team playing weekly, and hopefully the lapses in defence are less frequent. I know last nights result was a fluke, and it was only one game, but strangely enough, i'm feeling a lot more optimistic then i did a few days ago.
I would also urge Jewell to stick with the same side barring injuries! He has suddenly stumbled on a team that seems to have gelled into a unit and Drury, Martin & Hyam are just must picks! Even JET has shown real quality over the last few games! Stick with ALB in goal and send that useless loan tosser back to Reading!
Did you end up going last night JWM - I read that you werent but didnt know if you had a change of heart. The performance last night finally carried out what we saw glimpses from the Blackpool and Leeds game of. Our defence was capable and had signs of panic but not stupidity. I dont expect us to be able to go from our previously seen incompetence to the brilliance of last night on a regular basis but there are signs that as a front 6 we have a decent platform to build on. ALB, Cresswell and Smith for me are normally 95% reliable and Sonko is fine if he doesnt have to think about things to much. Edwards done well last night but generally scares me and I hope we can address this in the next couple of weeks. The thing about last nights performance wasnt just about how well we played but the intelligence in the play. Hyams passing was sloppy at times but his reading of the game was fantastic. JET and Chopra looked interested and dangerous and Drury was immense. The tempo, the invention and the workrate was standout and although I think WHU played badly (or didnt turn up) we can be pleased with our result. We cant allow this to be a one off though. Saturday is definately a must win, especially considering the following 2 home games are Cardiff and Boro. The defence is never strong enough to win you the league so does need addressing but if they can continue in not making the idiotic mistakes we should pick up the required points for this season. We have not suddenly turned into a brilliant team but there are signs for optimism out there which before christmas were not really evident.
I must confess I listerned to it on Suffolk as I couldn't bring myself to drive all the way up from Crawley in some forlorn hope that we would win! Stupid me in the end and just my bloody luck!
you missed a cracker mate. everything we have got annoyed about this season was sorted last night in a show of near enough faultless play. If we can play at 75% or more of that performance we will end the season comfortably in mid table. WHU were poor but I would be tempted to say it was our best ME era performance. Fingers crossed
Sorry, just amazing to have that feeling of positivity. Although I havent been as 'anti' as some on here its hard to deny its been a pretty dificult and dissapointing season so far.
Great crowd as well I heard that there were 22,000 for last nights game which for a midweek match that we all expected to lose takes some doing!
The offical away attendance was 2000 but I reckon it was nearer 3000. WH fans were spread all round the ground and in Churchmans upper were happy to sing their songs for the first half. The normally spare seat in front of me had a Hammer in it, well for the first half anyway he didnt reappear for the second half. Still 19000 for an expensive midweek game when your 4th bottom isnt too bad.
I heard that by the final 10 minutes there were only a couple of hundred Happy Hammers left in the ground! That's real support for you!
I work with a WH fan who sat in the cobbold last night and he said that he has never heard such a quiet set of fans before. I know we are quiet but as I pointed out to him at least the majority of our fans stay until the final whistle. We are not the noisiest but I think we do have a loyal core who will watch us for the full match no matter how bad we are. To be fair to the away fans left, all 20 (slight exaggeration) of them were singing to the end and even ironically celebrated our 5th!
Official away attendance was 2068.....at the final whistle I would doubt they had as many as 68 in the ground. Best performance for 2-3 years...! We were muted again last night, for me I think that is partly due to the fact we were all waiting for the self destruct button to be hit in the last 15mins. The South stand actually sang the team of the pitch, bit of a shame there were no Wet Sham fans left to hear it though...!
This makes the Coventry result even more important now. At least we have something to build on and confidence after last night must be sky high. Win at Coventry and I reckon we could see another 20,000 for the home game against Middlesborough which coincides with the ticket promotion. Boro will only bring a couple of hundred so it's up to us to create a fortress like atmosphere like back in the good old days!
JWM I truely feel for you, a long suffering ITFC supporter who's paid their hard earned cash to see some diabolical displays and then you've got the point where you've had enough and something like this comes along!! I wonder how many Sam Alladyce clubs have been thrashed like this before, it can't happen to often. This result is just typical of the championship however, anyone can beat anyone and anyone can seemingly thrash anyone its crazy!! I've always been a fan of Drury and its good to see he has deservedly been put into the side. I just hope that one bad performance from either drury or hyam won't result in them being out of the team for a lengthy period again. As for JET, looks like he is also benefitting from some game time and played a part in 3 of our goals last night, he can be potentially a superb(yet infuriating) player for us. I have to say for all of Jewells faults, he seems to know when the right time to bring a player back into or out of the team is most of the time. Martin was put in the reserves and has had to work hard and wait for his chance and now looks superb, same with Scotland & Chopra and to a certain extent Carson, although I do not understand why he isn't at least on the bench, I understand why sometimes Jewell prefers Murphy because he works hard for the team down that left hand side and also has that bit of physical presence that we don't have in abundance. Its certainly not do or die in terms of the result against Coventry but if we don't get a result, it could suck us back in again but if we win, I would be pretty confident of us staying up this season.
Great performance and great result last night, perhaps the pennys finally dropped with PJ that if you play young, enthusiastic players across the middle of the park you inject pace into the team. So why was Drury packed off to Crawley and nearly sold to them for a song while Luke Hyam was sat on his backside with nothing to do for months on end? Anyway how many of us are going to Coventry on Saturday? Many have waxed lyrical about Towns result last night but who will go to Coventry?
PTC, I think we perfere Murphy over Carson for certain games due to DM's size and power from a defensive pov. We dont have many big players in the squad. It really showed on Tuesday with Carlton Cole being 6 inches taller than the players marking him!
tractorbhoy I don't get your point, everyone says the same about Barca/Spain, they are all small and people say that they will get overpowered by a team full of giants but............. Saying that, i do think that Germany are now a better team than Spain!! I would rather Carson than Murphy everytime, obviously Jewell doesn't agree which is fair enough as he see's them train every day but at least put the lad on the bench, he can bring something different to the team when things ain't working!! Maybe its because Carson is refusing to sign a new contract but if that was the case then surely Leadboots would be out of the picture? Which, by the way, he should be!! Also just read that Hyam may be called up to the u21's, how fecking bizzare is that, the poor lad has been out in the cold for ages, gets called back because things ain't working out with the oldies for one reason or another and then people think he is good enough for England!! What next, a full England cap for Martin? Clegg to be knighted, Grrrrrrrrr!!
