Our play was decent first half but without the extra goals we should have scored. Second half wasn't good enough.
I agree with this. As the manager he must take some responsibility and it is pretty mature and sensible ( ) to say "some"... It is clearly a shared responsibility.
About the double substitution, I have never been a fan of them, unless it is at the start of the second half, when everyone is cold. When it is done, during the half, IMO, you end up with two players trying to get up to speed, effectively reducing the team effectiveness. Even if we are chasing a game, unless we are in the death throes, I'd sooner we sent on one sub at a time, so we always have at least 9 outfield players at match speed, rather than 8, which is how it often seems to me.
Here's another thing - people saying that we were somehow great first half. We weren't really, West Ham were just bloody awful. Really bad. They just stopped being quite so awful in the second half. As has been said, it's a sport between two teams. This was about their improvement second half more than anything we specifically did wrong.
Good post, and I know you haven't been on his case recently. But i stand by my post, I personally thought your criticism was over the top at the time. Just as some of the criticism here is as well. I also enjoy people's insight, your's as a striker and Tom's as a ref etc. The constant moaning is boring, I agree, as are the condescending things people write in response every time.
Fair play to the West Ham fans for their rousing chorus of "oh when the Saints, go 2-1 down..." As well!
I know I am bad at that. I do try not to, but then I'm very much a die-hard and end up trying to defend them. Me bad
I probably do it a bit too, in which case I apologise because in the grand scheme I don't have a bloody clue really!
Well Ronald said we wouldn't be able to recover in less than 48 hours so the second half display shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Tiredness will cause mistakes unfortunately.
Nobody does really! That's why we do the talking and leave the football stuff to the professionals. And in Ron we are in good hands
Not a bad idea FLT - if he could lay off the mayonnaise and chips for a few weeks! Would let him take the free kicks certainly from anywhere inside the oppositions half of the pitch! Heavens what another crap night FLT?!
I think we should paly him CDM and tell him not to run; just stare at any opponent that comes near him.
Was watching Bilic and Koeman in their technical areas and thinking 'there's a couple of handy CBs!' There was clearly a lot of respect there between the two, for what it's worth.
I think we're all guilty of getting caught up in it at the moment bloody football but I wouldn't have it any other way
Was actually nice to see two managers having a chat and a few smiles. Not often we see that these days.
Just another thing - an awful lot of the West Ham fans around me saying "we got away with one there" and "smash and grab" - no real talk of his we were awful or anything. Also a lot of opposition fans really rate Wanyama too. I think a lot of the time we can all get terribly caught up in fixating on things *we* did wrong that we lose perspective on the actual picture of the game as a whole.
Ha, that's funny because my old man said to me when the camera cut to them on TV: "They would've been an interesting defensive pairing to watch!"
