West Ham Utd 0 Ipswich Town 1 (27/09/11)

[the pink palermo]

Thanks Pinky.

That opening 20 minutes, was Nolan making any effort at all to track Bullard or was he just left to his own devices?

I was closer to Bullard than any of our players , and I sit in the Rio upper .........

[mywhufc]

I agree with that - thought he covered a lot of ground second half despite still looking slightly unfit. First half he was toilet though!

what did he do second half different to the first then, because where I was he was useless in both.

[hammer1975]

Irrespective of 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 etc Lansbury needs to not start the next game. I'd even be tempted to play Diop and tell noble to get further forward if Sam is going to persist with 4-5-1 ( which I don't have a problem with away)

[filthymullet]

Hammer1975 - 1st half he was toilet indeed; and he bottled a 50/50 didn't he? As did at other times O'Brien & Bentley.

We've got loads of midfielders, time to change something on Saturday.

[Combs]

F*ck me, don't leave / switch off early you might miss the away fans having something to cheer about.

Cardiff (Home) 90th (+1) min

Leeds (Home) 90th(+1) min

Aldershot (Home) 89th min

Portsmouth (Home) 90th(+7) min

Ipswich (Home) 89th min

Fitness, or too busy thinking of tomorrow's round of golf.

[Romford]

Romford,
knew you'd go, bad leg or not. :

Id have got an hatrick tonight mtre :lol:

To see people here moaning about the formation just shows everything about their knowledge.

No legs in the centre of the park...against Bullard and Bowyer. The two oldest men on the park !?

We dropped back far to deep to allow Bullard run the show....and yet again it was so easy for them to find space in the middle of the park.

BFS and the midfield should not be able to sleep tonight after that cobblers

[taffhammer]

It was definately 15-20 mins of 442, but why change back ? thats not long enough at 0-0 to say it's not working. It's not the formation that lets us down it's the lack of pace and movement. Bullard only looked good because he found space off the ball with movement and 100% effort. When he got it he hits a simple but effective pass.A very good footballer IMO and made Nolan look like what he is at present, unfit and unintrested.
Our team is starting to believe the press when they say we are favourites to go up, we all know you have to earn it by putting in the graft...they don't seem to.

[hammer1975]

what did he do second half different to the first then, because where I was he was useless in both.

He ran around more for a start - which admittedly wasn't hard based on the first half. He also made runs into the box when o'brien decided to hammer it way over the bar with two free in the middle (when o'brien finally came forward), he also made a lot of runs past bentley when bentley kept coming back inside on to his right. Was in the box when lansbury headed it back across and chased down cresswell a couple of times (once getting a bit of a push that be sweated at the Lino over and booted the advertising)

Not the best midfield performance clearly but certainly better than noble or Lansbury tonight IMO

[the pink palermo]

Before we all string ourselves up , we started the evning in 4th place, and finished it in 4th place .

Forest are in the bottom 5, Millwall the drop zone .Brighton conceded three in 10 minutes, and with us still to play a fewof the the other sides in the top 6 in the next 6 weeks it's still in our hands to climb the league by our own efforts .

Disappointing result tonight, poor perrromance,but still plenty to play for .

[irving boleyn]

It started 4.4.2.

And as a result we had two strikers isolated instead of one.

Baldock then had to go deeper to get the ball so morphed into a midfielder.Showed some good pace.

Same kind of performance as against Peterborough but didnt get that break.

Agree it would have been good management to have told Baldock to man mark Bullard, as most of his work was deep.

Nolan and Lansbury both put more effort in second half..a mini bo****king perhaps?

[Romford]

Its not the press...its the people on here who have a song and dance when we win by a dodgy pen.

[hammer1975]

Hammer1975 - 1st half he was toilet indeed; and he bottled a 50/50 didn't he? As did at other times O'Brien & Bentley.

We've got loads of midfielders, time to change something on Saturday.

He did - got a volley of abuse from the bobby moore lower, put his hands up then laid into ringo. Saw bentley bottle it at least three times and obviously he let the ball under his feet and miscontrolled a few times. Was surprised not to see bentley switched to the right if faubert was going to get splinters all nite. bentley looked good for brief moments then crap for brief moments - no consistency. As for Lansbury, poor passing, contol and temper all nite I'm afraid

[m-h]

Id have got an hatrick tonight mtre :lol:

To see people here moaning about the formation just shows everything about their knowledge.

No legs in the centre of the park...against Bullard and Boywer. The two oldest men on the park !?

We dropped back far to deep to allow Bullard run the show....and yet again it was so easy for them to find space in the middle of the park.

BFS and the midfield should not be able to sleep tonight after that cobblers

All too familiar story though isn't it. We should have or do have a midfield that should absolutely boss this league playing football with the ball on the deck. Worst case at least put midfielders on the opponents two players who their manager said were going to be his primary focus in pre match press.

[Hockley Hammer]

Not the best midfield performance clearly but certainly better than noble or Lansbury tonight IMO

This really is the problem isn't it? Nolan's contribution tonight was at best poor yet I counted more interceptions and passes to team mates that Noble and Lansbury combined.

On form all three should be dropped to show that the level of performance is just not good enough. Pass and move should not be an alien concept to midfield players.

The root of our problems is a static midfield who cannot pass or retain possession in the right areas of the field.

[Essex bill]

No way was that 4-4-2! :lol:

I can't believe we didn't create a chance at home to the team who have conceded the most goals so far this season.

Our midfield and especially our captain need to up their games.

[dimagician10]

We joked in the pub beforehand that Ipswich probably had the only team with a midfield slower than ours. Well they didn't need any pace tonight. How was Bullard allowed to dictate the game?

Tonight had little to do with formation changes but all to do with players not winning their battles and competing in the middle of the park. After the shambles of the first 20 minutes it didn't get any better.

I guess that we're still 4th and still only 2pts off from the top are the only crumbs of comfort.

[Up the Junction]

Paul Jewell's post-match presser for you first tonight, in full:

http://www.kumb.com/story.php?id=125707" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[warp]

some funny comments.
it doesn't matter if it is 4-5-1 or 4-4-2, if the only thing you do is kicking the ball 60 meters ahead to the (isolated) forward, it's gonna be **** regardless of the formation.

i wouldn't have problems with 4-5-1, even at home, if it is played properly.

greeno saved our ass in the first half, and faye and tomkins were good... imagine if they had a poor game!
shocking midfield.
we're probably the team with less movement without the ball in the whole football league, everyone just stands still, or runs around in circles.
cole tries, but he's too isolated, always has at least two defenders on him, he had to go in midfield by the touch line to be able to play some football. plus, i don't think he's a target man, he's better front to the goal rather than back to the goal. he'd also might work up front with carew.
baldock ran a lot, and in the second half he had some good moves on the edge of the box, but was regularly ignored.

bentley: he clearly has football skills, but has he been really that good?
today he only did two things: give it back to linda, and shoot some defenders.
agent bentley anyone?
or is this only 'cos he cannot play left mid?
fuçkin' spud anyway...


our best occasions came from counter attack, or am i making it up?

[issi]

Before we all string ourselves up , we started the evning in 4th place, and finished it in 4th place .

Forest are in the bottom 5, Millwall the drop zone .Brighton conceded three in 10 minutes, and with us still to play a fewof the the other sides in the top 6 in the next 6 weeks it's still in our hands to climb the league by our own efforts .

Disappointing result tonight, poor perrromance,but still plenty to play for .

Is that not the worry though, the only team we have played so far in the top 8 beat us at home, the rest are mid table or towards the bottom and at times we have struggled. It is in our own hands, but will we able to take the opportunity, I hope so, but dont see on the pitch, anything that makes me believe that we will. Unless BFS turns it around quick.

[warp]

spot on issi!

our "good away form" might well be due to the calendar.
doncaster, bottom of the league.
watford, struggling.
forest, close to drop zone.
millwall, third from bottom.

at home we've been quite ****, the only 'alright' game was against cardiff, all the others well below par.

so now that more difficult games are coming up, why should we be optimist?
i'm not saying we're doomed, far from it, but we're not looking that good.

it's in our own hands. shame at the moment we look like an 85 grandad with parkinson!