West Ham Utd 1 Tottenham 2 (23/08/09)

[HenrytheHammer]

Apart from the obvious pain of losing to them lot, I came out the ground feeling quite satisfied.

Despite the lack of width sometimes and exposing our full backs (especially Specs) I thought the midfield was fantastic. Parker and Noble just run their knackers off and Jimenez looked very tricky.
Collins and Upson were dominant at the back and seemed to have things well in control. Faubert has a better attitude this season and put in some very good tackles.
Poor old Carlton, despite the obvious, tried his best and was clearly exhausted. He gave their back four a real hard time considering he had a one man job on his hands.

The team that Zola put out had a great attitude and it's clear they are pullling their weight for each other. We are just a little let down by the quality of the bench, it was just so weak and had little or no attacking options.

[kitthehammer]

My observations were that i was satisfied we deserved a draw but that we are seriously lacking in an attacking midfielder (and another striker of course) capable of getting into the area and keeping up with any attacks or looks like scoring. I dont know whats happened with Collison but he's been off the boil for the last 3 matches i've watched him in - napoli, wolves and spurs. He disappeared for much of the match and stanislas was the better player out of the two of them. Also, although i'm not necessarily blaming spector for the second goal because he was played out of position against aaron lennon, i think ilunga would have stopped him.

Green - 7
Faubert - 8 (fair do's i thought he had a good match)
Collins - 7 (why are we even thinking of selling him? great ball to stanislas)
Upson - 7
Spector - 6 (but being played out of position - great ball to cole)
Collison - 5 (anonymous for much of the match)
Parker - 8 (great until he got knackered)
Noble - 8
Stanislas - 7 (was a threat but needs to improve shooting and crosses)
Jiminez - 8 (is getting better)
Cole - 8 (brilliant goal / terrible mistake)

subs -
Kovac - 6 (disn't impress much but hasn't played for a bit)
Hines - 5 (didn't do much)

[Alf Garnett's (Ex) Missus]

Not sure where the bossing of King/Bassong is from - I distinctly recall Cole being outpaced/out hustled and out thought by the Spurs defenders on a number of occasions. Goal aside, Cole did very little with the ball at his feet and his back to goal except tit out and generally losing any opportunity to do anything with the ball.

I think the the 'Gangsta' Lennon and the little Judas' play towards the end of the game showed exactly what we lack - pace and teh ability to worry teams on the break. When Spurs broke, it was at pace and with real drive, we sort of meander up the pitch a bit, play the ball back to a defender to hoof, then watch Cole do f*** all except give King a really easy job of defending.

As has been stated we have no width and we played far to far back on our heels - in hindsight much of Cole's dithering could be attributed to having no ****er supporting him.

Parker once again my MOM and Faubert was surprisingly ok at RB and is growing on me.

[EvilC]

Noble - 8

:lol:

[NE hammer]

I hate Sp*rs and I also hate Redknob.............sorry for stating the obvious but I was at a wedding all day yesterday and never had an opportuntity to share my view.

[orpingtonhammer]

agree about collison everything seemed to be going via Noble and jiminez

[Puff Daddy]

I see what you're saying, don't agree with it mind. However, even if we wanted to, I don't think we have the players for it. If we had Maldini, Baresi, Gattuso etc fair enough, but we just don't. And we don't really train for it either, I mean from a young age.[/quote]

The Italian system is called Catanaccio, (Locked up). It is designed to do exactly that, lock up the opposing team's attackers and give them absolutley no room to manoeuver. It has gone completely out of fashion, but as you so rightly mention, we do not play this way in England. The reason being that the mind set of football in the UK is that from almost the very first day a father takes his children over the park with a football, what does hes do? Why, put two jumpers or bags down for the goal and tells his kids to try to kick the ball into the goal. Believe me, you would never see that in Italy, or Spain, certainly not in Brazil and these days, not even in the US either. So right from the very begining, children think of scoring goals and of getting the ball into the opposing team's penalty area, by whatever means possible and as quickly as possible. It is all we know in this country and fans want to see their teams attacking because they have been brainwashed from the very begining about getting the ball ino the net and as regards tactics, or the art of defending, that is 'foreign' to their mindset and is something virtually unknown to them. Back to my point though. Zola is Italian, he would know how to operate that system, he has got us playing a totally different brand of football, almost unrecognisable from a year ago. If he can do that, he can change our way of playing to defend a 1-0 lead once we have established it. I am not, incidentally, saying we should do this forever, but with our limitations, both in squd numbers and depth, to say nothing of our off the field difficulties, we can compete on a level playing field with all the other teams, even those so much better off than ourselves by playing to our strengths and nullifying ther opposition's. Had we played that way yesterday, we would have won the game and deservedly so too. A number of years ago, Wimbledon defied all odds year on year, by playing to their strengths which I appreciate were entirely different to that that I have mentioned, but you had to hand it them, it worked for them,it got them results and many teams feared them for it too and had no idea how to combat it

[smuts]

Not sure where the bossing of King/Bassong is from - I distinctly recall Cole being outpaced/out hustled and out thought by the Sp*rs defenders on a number of occasions. Goal aside, Cole did very little with the ball at his feet and his back to goal except tit out and generally losing any opportunity to do anything with the ball.

I think the the 'Gangsta' Lennon and the little Judas' play towards the end of the game showed exactly what we lack - pace and teh ability to worry teams on the break. When Sp*rs broke, it was at pace and with real drive, we sort of meander up the pitch a bit, play the ball back to a defender to hoof, then watch Cole do f*** all except give King a really easy job of defending.

As has been stated we have no width and we played far to far back on our heels - in hindsight much of Cole's dithering could be attributed to having no f***er supporting him.

Parker once again my MOM and Faubert was surprisingly ok at RB and is growing on me.

Totally agree with all that.

[beckton]

As has been stated we have no width and we played far to far back on our heels - in hindsight much of Cole's dithering could be attributed to having no f***er supporting him.

At one point during the second half, Cole was on the edge of the Spurs area with the ball whilst our midfield were stood on the halfway line watching.

Don't know if it was because they were knackered, forgotten they need to support a lone striker or worried about Spurs pace on the counter but it looked awful.

No way was that 4-3-3 yesterday.

I thought the ref was o.k though he could have booked a couple of Spurs players before he booked Jimenez.

The penalty shout happened right in front of me and I thought the ref got it right, they even showed a replay on the big screens by mistake. :lol:

The game just shows again we are in desperate need of a couple of forwards and Ilunga getting fit quick.


But at least we regained the Ashes! :raver: and if we play like that on Tuesday, without the stupid cock-ups we will thrash Millwall.

[rendog2]

May I venture that the rather tedious football we played under Curbs was more like catenaccio than what Zola's got us playing?

[Puff Daddy]

May I venture that the rather tedious football we played under Curbs was more like catenaccio than what Zola's got us playing?

Yeah and it worked too didn't it ! How many times did we let a lead slip once we established it.

[Matt of iron]

[quote="Puff Daddy"
Yeah and it worked too didn't it ! How many times did we let a lead slip once we established it.[/quote]


Bolton at home.

[-DL-]

Did they show 2 different matches on ESPN yesterday? Apparently, a spud I have the displeasure to know claims they were all over us yesterday. Funny that, because the game I saw, we could have scored 4, and Cole could have had a hat-trick. The one on one with the keeper, the ball accross the box he really should have chucked himself in front of, are just 2 off the top of my head.

I have got a bit more positivity back after yesterday's performance. I am not singling Cole out, but he really should have scored the two chances I have just mentioned. If he had, then his mistake would not have mattered. His goal however was top draw. Which makes it even worse that he missed the two easy chances earlier. All very well scoring the spectacular goals, if you don't put away the ones on a plat, we saw yesterday, they count for nothing. But he will learn, and I have faith he will get better and better.

Spector done ok, wasn't the best performance, and I felt he was very unlucky with the goal. He had got the ball from Lennon, then slipped at the vital moment.

Faubert I was very impressed with, Jiminez also. Cracking header just wide of the post. It won't be long before he gets his first goal.

All in all, a lot of positives can be taken from this game. As has been mentioned, we are a striker and a fit Illunga away from being a tasty side.

[clawhammer]

Not sure where the bossing of King/Bassong is from - I distinctly recall Cole being outpaced/out hustled and out thought by the Sp*rs defenders on a number of occasions. Goal aside, Cole did very little with the ball at his feet and his back to goal except tit out and generally losing any opportunity to do anything with the ball.

.

You don't actually know very much about football do you?

[Matt of iron]

Cole caused Bassong and King a lot of problems, I don't know how anyone coud miss the problems he caused them imo

[Alf Garnett's (Ex) Missus]

Not sure where the bossing of King/Bassong is from - I distinctly recall Cole being outpaced/out hustled and out thought by the Sp*rs defenders on a number of occasions. Goal aside, Cole did very little with the ball at his feet and his back to goal except tit out and generally losing any opportunity to do anything with the ball.

You don't actually know very much about football do you?

No - I know nothing,

Obviously a player with his back to goal, ball at his feet and within the penalty area need not worry about not being able to either get a shot off at goal, make a constructive pass, or force the defence into taking action to cause a corner or better? Cole managed this very few times, and in the main merely allowed the defence to crowd him out or bundle him off the ball.

I may not know anything according to you, however, I do know I expect more from my forward line.

[Matt of iron]

No - I know nothing,

Obviously a player with his back to goal, ball at his feet and within the penalty area need not worry about not being able to either get a shot off at goal, make a constructive pass, or force the defence into taking action to cause a corner or better? Cole managed this very few times, and in the main merely allowed the defence to crowd him out or bundle him off the ball.

I may not know anything according to you, however, I do know I expect more from my forward line.

But he very rarely got the ball taken off him, held it up and brought people into the game many times and had a lot of chances.

Shirley if he caused King and co no trouble he would of had the ball taken off him everytime...Seemed to me that nly happened about 1 or 2 times.

[Upton Larks]

Not sure where the bossing of King/Bassong is from - I distinctly recall Cole being outpaced/out hustled and out thought by the Sp*rs defenders on a number of occasions. Goal aside, Cole did very little with the ball at his feet and his back to goal except tit out and generally losing any opportunity to do anything with the ball.

:shock:
Is this a wind up?

[sutts07]

I may not know anything according to you, however, I do know I expect more from my forward line.

think your being a touch harsh on Cole here... he was left isolated to play one against three or four for large parts of this game... there were countless times where he still managed to hold off two or three defenders and keep hold of the ball for us against the odds.

[Albie Beck]

AGeM, I'm sure you're as knowledgeable as most, but as regards Cole's performance yesterday, you're being unfair. He single-handedly kept one of the better CB combinations fully occupied and I'll bet that King will be feeling completely ****ed today. The "mental aberration" aside, Carlton had an excellent game, and with Parker, Jiminez and - yes - Faubert, was amongst our better performers.

At the other end, Defoe didn't really get a look in against our CBs until the gift. So... who had the better overall game against their direct opponents - Defoe or Cole? My view is that Cole did.