West Ham Utd 1 Aston Villa 2 (16/04/11)

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.

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Cuenca 'ammer
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by Cuenca 'ammer »

What happened to your "Let's be positive and get behind the team and manager" thread ??

Loadabollox
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hammer1975
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by hammer1975 »

miami-hammer wrote:Substitions.........we needed a midfielder.
lots of talk about being relegated as a result of keeping grant...whilst I must confess to being disappointed with him over the last three games I think we missed a massive trick not buying sidwell
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by Matt of iron »

I'd love to know the logic behind spanking long balls up to Cole in the seoncd half was?

When he got one on one against there centre backs he roasted them.

When he had to jump he didn't have a chance.

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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by smuts »

It's been about our only tactic for the last 3 years.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by bubbles1966 »

Matt of iron wrote:I'd love to know the logic behind spanking long balls up to Cole in the seoncd half was?
I think it was probably dictated by how badly our midfield was coping.

Noble seemed three yards off the pace today and seemed to give it away every time.

IMO, Parker plays today - we win that game.

Villa were no great shakes but we never got hold of the ball in the sceond half.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by hawkins_hammer »

In defence of Obinna, he is not a left midfielder and was most likely drafted into the position las minute due to Parker's injury. We had one on the bench and didn't bring him on. We also have a wide midfielder in Barrera who cant seem to buy his way onto the bench. LBM or Spector had to come on for O'Neill, he had Ba on the bench but had to accept that he had brought on Hines before him so Ba would have to settle for a day off. But know the fans demanded it and he cave in. Spineless!!

Grant still doesn't know his best team and it is embarrassing. I miss passing football, I miss Behrami, I miss Zola. We needed all three today.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by Morocco Mole »

kthammer wrote: It's not all over yet, though. As long as Wolves don't go on a run, it's still all down to that Blackburn game.
Trouble is, in the last few weeks and given pretty much a full squad to choose from, Avi has either got his starting line up wrong or made idiotic substitutions. Basically it's looking like he hasn't got a clue how to find the right blend.

While there are still enough points to play for maybe we should put the **** out of his misery now. Whatever happens he's gone at the end of the season anyway. A fresh face might be just the impetus we need to crawl across that finish line in 17th....even if it's Lomas... :think:
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by Hammer Laffers »

Not normally one of those knee jerk reaction people but......


We're going down...

Having seen the majority of our games this season I can see we don't have the fight to do it.

I'm off to lock myself in a dark room
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by bubbles1966 »

There's still an issue in midfield that has existed for two plus years.

When we start to flag, energy wise, the solution was always bring on Mullins - a reasonably energetic, bloke who would hold it together for 30 minutes at the end of a game

Then we bought Kovac. A bloke incapable of being energetic for 30 seconds.

Today, Parker is out - and we don't have a Mullins type to put in. Still. So we play two footballers. no athletes and get overrun physically. Everything else flows from that.

Hammer1975 point about Sidwell is a valid one.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by prophet:marginal »

You're right. Personally, once O'Neill got carried off, I'd have put Specs in his place.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by hawkins_hammer »

bubbles1966 wrote:There's still an issue in midfield that has existed for two plus years.

When we start to flag, energy wise, the solution was always bring on Mullins - a reasonably energetic, bloke who would hold it together for 30 minutes at the end of a game

Then we bought Kovac. A bloke incapable of being energetic for 30 seconds.

Today, Parker is out - and we don't have a Mullins type to put in. Still. So we play two footballers. no athletes and get overrun physically. Everything else flows from that.

Hammer1975 point about Sidwell is a valid one.
We sold an energetic midfielder in January
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by Trap1 »

Cuenca 'ammer wrote:What happened to your "Let's be positive and get behind the team and manager" thread ??

Loadabollox
I tried but like Avram, failed miserably.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by prophet:marginal »

We didn't sell Behrami, he just chased a ball into a busy street.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by hawkins_hammer »

Good owning up to a mistake their Trap...I wonder if Grant owned up to his mistakes in the post-match...Or did he say "judge me at the end of the season, we are starting to improve" etc etc? :lol:
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by hammersgirl7573 »

One moment towards the end of the match summed it up for me today. Ba has the ball, one on one with Friedal, Villa defence no where near him. 2 months ago he wouldn't have hesitated to shoot. Instead he almost panicked and chose a sideways pass and lost possession. No confidence. A very lacklustre game. Time for the boys to stand and be counted.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by hammer1975 »

bubbles1966 wrote:There's still an issue in midfield that has existed for two plus years.

When we start to flag, energy wise, the solution was always bring on Mullins - a reasonably energetic, bloke who would hold it together for 30 minutes at the end of a game

Then we bought Kovac. A bloke incapable of being energetic for 30 seconds.

Today, Parker is out - and we don't have a Mullins type to put in. Still. So we play two footballers. no athletes and get overrun physically. Everything else flows from that.

Hammer1975 point about Sidwell is a valid one.
hawkins_hammer wrote: We sold an energetic midfielder in January
who had wanted out for over a year and allegedly feigned injury to miss games....an interested, determined behrami would have been a massive player for us - sadly I think he left in his head long before he did in body
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by simon1982 »

bubbles1966 wrote:There's still an issue in midfield that has existed for two plus years.

When we start to flag, energy wise, the solution was always bring on Mullins - a reasonably energetic, bloke who would hold it together for 30 minutes at the end of a game

Then we bought Kovac. A bloke incapable of being energetic for 30 seconds.

Today, Parker is out - and we don't have a Mullins type to put in. Still. So we play two footballers. no athletes and get overrun physically. Everything else flows from that.

Hammer1975 point about Sidwell is a valid one.
Bubbles the problem has been our energy and agility for a long time, we have knowone other than parker who can get close to an opponent to make a tackle, we back off 30 yards the minute we lose the ball through fear of being caught or over run, o'neil, noble, parker and hitz are all of the same build. We have one player who can carry the ball 30 yards to relieve pressure! Without the ball we are the worst team in the league by a country mile. If ever a game was crying out for spector then this was the one. To bring on Hines to block out young/downing was suicide, a weak player out of position who appears every 6 weeks. Ultimately the manager has the final decision but you can't tell me the asst manager and coaching staff agree.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by Odessa »

Well that was a pile of ****. Pumping the ball to Cole (Hines in the 2nd) counts for tactics? Villa looked like scoring every time they had the ball in midfield while West Ham looked for a killer ball that really wasn't on. Why didn't Ba start? Injured? It didn't look like it. I've backed Grant until today. Go, you useless Chelsea git.
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by Morocco Mole »

Bubbs is right about the lack of athletes in the squad and in fairness to Grant he did try to sign Diop in January....
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Re: West Ham v Aston Villa Match Thread

Post by hawkins_hammer »

Behrami always tried for us on the pitch though. Having said that, the players dont matter...we have talented players, they just aren't being coached/managed properly.
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