Alfie Mawson is of course out, although he's apparently been able to do some 'light running'. In his press conference Ranieri said that Harvard Nordtveit could feature and Lazar Markovic "is better placed in terms of his fitness" - so reading between the lines, he 'aint match fit ! And, in theory at least, Tim Fosu-Mensah is eligible again. West Ham have been a tad hit and miss at the 'Tax Payers' Stadium and indeed have only won one of their last seven Premiership games. Their situation hasn't been helped by the 'Chinatown' saga around Arnautovic and injuries. However, manager Manuel Peregrini has had a major boost for this one with Lanzini likely to be back. A major threat will be midfielder Felipe Anderson. Especially from set pieces, although his outfield play can be blistering. Sorry to say it but he's overdue a goal. Another concern could be our old boy Ryan Fredericks who has fought his way into the side and by all accounts - mainly his own on twitter - is back to his best. For us, who plays and how we play could be determined by a throw of the dice - will it land on a 4 or a 5 at the back? Let's hope Ranieri sees sense and goes for four. However, which four gives him the biggest headache and he may well take the easy route. The new boy Nordtviet adds to the conundrum. Mainly because nobody seems to know whether he's a centre back or a central midfield defender. And talking about CMDs, Anguissa has been featuring in an awful lot of Official training pictures. Could he come in and Chambers move to centre half? Despite Ranierri talking up Ryan Sessegnon for once, strongly suspect the team we'll see - with maybe a bit of mini-tinkering at the back - will be his usual lot. So going for the one I'd play: ..............................Ricco.................... ...Odoi.....Chambers...Le Marchand....Bryan... ...............................Seri....... ...........Cairney.....Anguissa...Sessegnon... ......................Mitrovic....Babel..
Tonight we have Lee Mason. please log in to view this image Have heard him called Mr Roly Poly and some saying that he can't keep up with play. To be fair though, we haven't had too many complaints in the past. We last saw him back in April when we beat Reading 1-0 thanks to a Stefan Johansen goal. That was our final midweek game at the Cottage in the 'Great Campaign'. Before then it was the 2-1 win at Derby in the same marvellous undefeated run. You then have to go back to 2016 and the surreal 2-1 loss to QPR at the Cottage. You'll recall we missed two penalties; the second when Aluko hit the post in injury time. Those misses, and other incidents in the game, were hardly Mason's fault. Talking of penalties, the Bolton supporting Mason is top of the list with 5 in his 19 games this season - 4 of those 5 to the home side! He's also managed 67 yellows and 1 red.
Not a fan of Joe Bryan it must be said. Thought he was a really good signing when we got him but haven't been impressed with him at all.
He was dreadful Fab, as he has been in the last umpteen games. But ... at least he tries which is more than could be said about others. No idea what Anguissa and Markovic brought to the second half. What got me most however, was the lack of reaction to West Ham's handball equaliser. Not one player challenged the officials. Not one player jumped up and down wildly gesticulating and screaming. Even at half time nobody confronted Mason; they all just trudged meekly off to the dressing room. Says to me that there is no PASSION, FIGHT or BELIEF in this team.
It was hard to stomach tonight, we got off to a belated good start following Babel deciding to shot at the keeper. We were defending resolutely apart from putting ourselves under pressure at times, then the hand of sod gives them a goal. A real game changer, had it been seen, does he get a straight red?? Then their tails we up, ours drooped for a while then conceded the second. Continuing with the bad stuff, how isn't Snodgrass booked, he dived all game and the ref just waves us on. Ream gets booked for letting the player dive over his leg, it all beggars belief at times. The positives, our new CB Nordtveit had a good game, in fact for a first appearance, a very good game. Mitrovic was he normal battling self, Ream, Chambers and Odoi did well. Rico made 2 excellent saves, the goals conceded were not his fault, but a double fist punch when it can/should be caught is questionable. Markovic looked pretty comfortable and had something about him. The negatives, Babel must have washed his boots and hair. Tom struggled at times but was often swamped by the opposition, he even defended well for 85% of the time, but overall not his best. Worst of all Cardiff lost and our chance to catch up a bit was lost too. Where do we go from here, the Championship most likely. Oh hum.
Whenever we concede a goal there just seems to be an acceptance from the players that the games gone. After a good start and going ahead as soon as West Ham score their first (albeit a goal that shouldn't have counted) I just knew we would collapse. When you look at our squad player for player it isn't a bad squad, we have a lot of talented players, guys who have played at the highest level but it just seems that for all their talent and ability they severely lack in fight and passion.
We could have had a point there tonight, did well for the first 10/15 minutes but one they equalised down went the confidence and they battered us till half time. Fans seemed to have accepted our fate and there was good fun being had at the bars at half time. Half expecting us to lose on Wednesday and go on to beat Chelsea.
I nicknamed Felix Magath Mr Magoo, I'm calling Claudio Ranieri Inspector Clueso or should that be Clueless?
I was at this one. I couldn't believe how good we looked for the first 10 minutes or so, but it looked to me as if Ranieri waved Chambers back after that point, suggesting that he told the team to protect our lead rather than carrying on in the same vein as we had started. If that's the case, it has to go down to poor game management on his part - surely he didn't think we would be capable of defending a one goal lead for 80 minutes. Whatever the reason, West Ham began to get on top and when the goal came it wasn't against the run of play. Even though there's a strong argument for saying that it shouldn't have counted, I'm not sure that it being disallowed would have made a big difference: we had allowed West Ham to take control of the game and we were looking vulnerable at every one of the many corners we were allowing them to have. We should have carried on doing what got us ahead rather than handing over the initiative to West Ham. I was bemused by the half time substitutions. I thought Seri was a big part of our positive play at the beginning, and wasn't having a bad game even after that. I suppose if you're looking to close a game out, then a more physically imposing midfielder like Anguissa makes some sense, but we were already losing by the time he came on. Similarly, I thought Markovic looked promising, but I didn't think Sess was having a bad game. What is it going to do to his confidence to finally get into the starting line up and then get taken off at half time? Unless either of those players were injured, I couldn't understand the logic behind the changes. For what it's worth, I didn't think Bryan had a particularly bad game. I wouldn't have said he was outstanding, but I thought he was no worse than his team mates. Nordtveit worried me with his passing in the first half (though he was much better in the second), but other than that looked like he could be a decent defender. I also thought that Cairney's performance showed again that his best work comes when he's played in the middle rather than out on the right - something that I seem to recall was the consensus opinion on this board about three years ago. Hey ho.
Watched highlights with a Spanish commentary. They focussed on how poor Sess was and how at least one of the goals was his fault. Have to say that from what I saw he looked deeply unhappy. Wouldn’t expect him to hang around if Claudio stays post relegation which seems a certainty now. I’ve said it before. I have been very disappointed by Sess this year. Maybe it’s not all his doing but he just hasn’t kicked on in the way I thought he would. I thought us and Wolves would be the surprise packages this season. We have been but only Wolves in the way I imagined. What has been the difference? I haven’t seen them at all so would like to know, especially as we were both being tipped as Premiership ready when we came up.
Wolves came up with a settled side which had pretty much strolled their way to the Championship title. Brought in only a few new guys. We, on the other hand had to replace 8 loans and started recruitment a month after everyone else. Worse the majority of the new signings didn't then appear till deadline day. The pre-season was therefore poor in terms of preparation. Add to that, Mawson not fit and Cairney injured in 3rd game. Plus fact that the quality vis a vis the Premiership of (most ?) of the new guys questionable. In essence then, our recruitment strategy was a shambles.