Relive every moment of every first team game since the beginning of the 2005/06 season. Our archive of matchday threads originally posted in the General Discussion Forum.
stubbsy07 wrote:We didn't set up to be hard to beat. We didn't set up to get at them and TRY to take the game to them.
How do you set up to frustrate them and set up to have a go andtakethe game to them at the same time?
Hambrosia Stu wrote:I'm all for playing attacking, slick football when the circumstances allow, but when away to the champions, surely it's a game where you do all you can to frustrate and keep the game tight.
I thought we set ourselves up fine and were looking tough to beat in the first half. It was a few poor decisions that cost us, rather than the way we set ourselves out tactically in my view. We needed to keep a clean sheet until half time, get through that and try to frustrate the home fans. We had a great chance in the first half but unfortunately it fell to Behrami and he dragged it wide. But once we committed ourselves to one attack, we lost our discipline there and they done us on the counter. Once they scored they just went up another gear in the second half and showed how much of a better side they are.
I don't think we can dwell on this defeat. No one likes to lose of course, but i personally think the effort was there, we were just outclassed by champions. We need to worry about our home fixtures. It sounds like a bad attitude but everyone would be irate right now if we got beat by Man Utd, as expected and Parker picked up a yellow. I think Zola made the right decisions personally.
I even said before the match, to my dad, that if i was Zola, i would drop Parker as we will probably get f*** all out of the match :lol:
A fundamental requirement of membership of KUMB is respecting the opinions of others, even if you disagree - so please try to be a little bit more constructive in future. Thank you.
THE GIBBINS wrote:I thought we set ourselves up fine and were looking tough to beat in the first half. It was a few poor decisions that cost us, rather than the way we set ourselves out tactically in my view. We needed to keep a clean sheet until half time, get through that and try to frustrate the home fans. We had a great chance in the first half but unfortunately it fell to Behrami and he dragged it wide. But once we committed ourselves to one attack, we lost our discipline there and they done us on the counter. Once they scored they just went up another gear in the second half and showed how much of a better side they are.
I don't think we can dwell on this defeat. No one likes to lose of course, but i personally think the effort was there, we were just outclassed by champions. We need to worry about our home fixtures. It sounds like a bad attitude but everyone would be irate right now if we got beat by Man Utd, as expected and Parker picked up a yellow. I think Zola made the right decisions personally.
I even said before the match, to my dad, that if i was Zola, i would drop Parker as we will probably get f*** all out of the match :lol:
Good assessment, Pretty much what I thought. However, I think we should have swapped Diamanti & Behrami, to give Spector a bit more help with Valencia
WestHamIFC wrote:Tomkins was atrocious for Rooney's 2 goals.
Not sure why Tomkins was chosen to mark Rooney rather than Upson, but it would have been nice if he could at least have made an effort to stay with his man on each occasion?? :evil:
Unfortunately the lad has absolutely no pace.
Did you see the two tacles INSIDE the area he made? No pace my arse
For his first full season Tomkins is doing marvellous. Name one defender who can live with Rooney at the moment? Some unrealistic expectations on here after two wins at home against poorer opposition.
6 points against run of mill teams birmingham hull lose to mancs 3 points against bolton then afc cfc away
good job theres a load of sh.t below us. done me dough again 16/1 imust be mad
Disappointed to see a few questioning Cole's work-rate and even bottle last night. Both he and Franco, but especially Cole, looked like they were still badly feeling the effects of their injuries and were it not for the fact that resting both Parker and Cole would have sent out a terrible message, I doubt he would have been called upon to play twice in four days. Cole was still grafting but was moving nowhere near as quickly as he would be if untroubled.
The fact it took him over a minute longer than anyone else to get off the pitch at full-time yet again confirmed for me that it was solely a fitness issue, as did the fact he has never previously suffered a notable dip in performance against the top teams - remember the comments posted here from Chelsea forums last season, and Arsenal a few months ago. The guy has clearly rushed back from injury way ahead of schedule to try to help keep us up and I think it does him a massive disservice to suggest he has either been lazy or disinterested. Our owners certainly don't think so and they hate footballers :lol:
Great atmosphere last night, with some great chants about the Norwich resemblance. Goes to show that turnout is pretty irrelevant if those who do show are committed to having a singalong no matter what.
Thought we did well first half ......got mugged by a very quick break for Rooney's first goal.
Looked like we didn't come out the same team after half time .....and Man U had worked during the interval at exposing what we all know are our weaknesses at the back .......both 2nd half goals coming through exposing weaknesses at full back.
I was particularly annoyed by the 3rd goal ....as it was very unprofessional goal to give away .....reminded me of the same mistake we made for Liverpool's equaliser in the last minute of that Cup Final .......Faubert should have put the ball into touch when Noble went down injured......they would have thrown the ball back to us .....we would have thrown it to Greenie ....who would have hoofed it down the park .....
Overall ratings:
Green : Did OK ....no chance we goal .....don't know what he was doing when he followed Rooney out of the area.
Faubert : Did ok ..apart from some iffy crosses and his part in 3rd goal
Tomkins : Did ok when 1 on 1 .....but got badly drawn about to give Rooney the space for his goals
Upson : I thought was poor ......surprised he wasn't detailed to pick up Rooney ........didn't command like Vidic did at the other end.
Spector : his lack of pace exposed ...but felt we had to start with him after recent performances.
Behrami : could have done better with his chance ......still tends to run around like a headless chicken sometimes.
Noble : poor game ....but he hasn't played for weeks ....so hardly surprising he wasn't at the races.
Kovac: Tought he played ok ...got stuck in ......notice that very little went through the middle
Diamanti : i thought was ok first half ....but faded second half .....and certainly not a great help to the full back behind him ......struggled to find anybody with his passing too.
Cole : poorest game from him in a while....Vidic bossed him ......provided little threat or get out for the others.
Franco : again poor game from him .....didn't link with the midfield like he can .....looked unfit.
Mido: i thought he added a bit more threat upfront ....but not given much to work with.
Collison : helped Specs more than Diamanti ......still developing
Dyer: well he got his appearance money ....didn't notice him when he came on.
Although we lost ..i thought first performance against many other teams would have got us a result .......certainly against the likes of our next few home games.
Away ..i think we maybe should recognise that we are in a relegation dog-fight .....0-0 is a good result .....play tighter .....quicker on the break .......and maybe steal it at a set piece ...free-kick or corner.
although i don't think we touched the ball after noble went down injured for the third goal for faubert or anyone else to kick it out
watched the game in the pub, about 100 or so in there, no one was moaning most of the game we were clapping our lads performance, i honestly though we played well, caused them problems, all 3 goals although well taken, were at some point attributable to a mistake, but they are one of the best teams out there, play like that against most teams away from home and we'd get something not every team has a rooney
glad i watched it with like minded people rather than sat indoors reading some of the deluded nonsense written on here during and after the game
smuts wrote:I agree about a lot of the comments about pace....it's the slowest West Ham team ever.
It wasn't long ago that we had the likes of Etherington, Bellamy etc and could hit teams on the break........now we just sort of meander up the field at a slow trot.................
...makes me wonder why we didnt have stanislas even as an option for the game last night? We move the ball so slowly, as well as carry the ball even slower-- faubert had a couple of great opportunities to dip his shoulder and take them on last night...wasnt interested
frankly speaking, we've played pretty rubbish since bellamy left, and we only played well last season, in the eight or so games he was available... a big, big loss, in other words.
Just back after having to stay over in manchester. Thought our fans were fantastic and we definately have the best away fans in the country without a doubt. the man utd fans barely made a noise all game apart from when they scored and even then they just sat down. Must be so boring being a man utd fan just going and expecting your team to win. In terms of the game I thought we played quite well throughout. Rooney made the difference. Agree with some others the thing we lacked the most was a bit of pace on the counter attack. When we were in the position to counter we just launched it up field or passed it round the back and midfield. Overall I enjoyed the game as being in Aberdeen I cant get to many games a season. Win, lose or draw I love watching us play!
w4hammer wrote:
...makes me wonder why we didnt have stanislas even as an option for the game last night? We move the ball so slowly, as well as carry the ball even slower-- faubert had a couple of great opportunities to dip his shoulder and take them on last night...wasnt interested
frankly speaking, we've played pretty rubbish since bellamy left, and we only played well last season, in the eight or so games he was available... a big, big loss, in other words.
i don't think anyone in their right mind would say we don't miss Bellamy. If he was fit and still with us we'd be top ten/pushing for Europe, a definately believe that.
Dyltheiron wrote:
i don't think anyone in their right mind would say we don't miss Bellamy. If he was fit and still with us we'd be top ten/pushing for Europe, a definately believe that.
although i don't think we touched the ball after noble went down injured for the third goal for faubert or anyone else to kick it out
watched the game in the pub, about 100 or so in there, no one was moaning most of the game we were clapping our lads performance, i honestly though we played well, caused them problems, all 3 goals although well taken, were at some point attributable to a mistake, but they are one of the best teams out there, play like that against most teams away from home and we'd get something not every team has a rooney
glad i watched it with like minded people rather than sat indoors reading some of the deluded nonsense written on here during and after the game
That's exactly as I saw it on a stream. We didn't play badly, they played better. No real surprise.
dodger wrote:Clearly he was beaten up by a West Ham fan at school. Good on whoever did that.
i saw what the tosser was saying on there , i even joind up to give him some stick but you have to go on the newbies forum before you can join the other ones , i see hes giving the olimpic stadium west ham link a bit now ,, i just started my own thread on there asking why he hates west ham so mutch i recon swallow knicked his bird off him years ago ,,,
