West Ham Utd 0-1 Stoke City (31/08/13)

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KFC Kirky
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by KFC Kirky »

I have just read the last couple of pages of this thread but I think that we need a striker desperately, as Maiga is clearly not the man to play on his own up top. I think that games against stoke are never gonna be classics and that we suffered from not having someone to hold the ball up. I think Noble was aware of this and in turn, this limited his passing options and caused him to become predictable in his passing (and caused him to lose the ball more often than usual)

The free kick was quite a good free kick in fairness and we still haven't conceded a goal in open play this season. I'm pretty p1ssed off with the display as I think it was 3 points Sam would have banked upon and it demonstrates we need a decent back up striker but I don't think we should panic. Given this I'd take any amount of money to sell Maiga so we can get someone decent in. He hasn't shown anything to me to demonstrate he's good enough for us.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by Clacton-ammer »

First game of the season for me due to holiday, read the match reports on here, seen MOTD highlights previous. Turned up at the Boleyn all buzzed up expecting a decent display.

Have to say, one of our worst, if not the worst performance under SA to date. Team lacked cohesion, in main I felt due to nothing up front, no movement throughout the team, made harder as nothing for our midfield to hit. Positive was that our defence looks solid, and Jussi keeps surprising me, great double save as well - great agility from the fella to get up and stop Walters.

Every man and his dog must see we need more of a threat up top, more options for SA to change the game.

Put it down to a bad day at the office, expect more from us, and in fairness they have shown that previously. Fingers crossed we bring in a front man today at some point.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by taffhammer »

Clacton-ammer wrote: Every man and his dog must see we need more of a threat up top, more options for SA to change the game.
Or change the formation if it's not working and try Lee on with Maiga as two up front. BFS is too stubborn when it comes to tactics , Hughes adapted for this game and it got him the points.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by BondsoBob »

SpongeBob's Pants wrote:We have international players in our ranks, and i dont think a single member of our first 11 is considered anything but PL standard, so its not like we ought to be losing to Stoke at home.
How can we still be trying to establish ourselves as a PL team when we have spent 8 out of the last 9 seasons in the PL ?
Last edited by Up the Junction on Mon Sep 02, 2013 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Large quote edited.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by DaveWHU1964 »

BondsoBob wrote:
How can we still be trying to establish ourselves as a PL team when we have spent 8 out of the last 9 seasons in the PL ?
Because two years ago we were in the Championship, lost our best players and had to virtually start all over again.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by wizzo_66 »

DaveWHU1964 wrote: Because two years ago we were in the Championship, lost our best players and had to virtually start all over again.
Not doubting your overall assessment that it's difficult to bounce back to the PL, but we didn't lose our biggest assets imho.

We kept Green, Tomkins, Noble, Cole who were the only players of any significance other than Parker of course.

Losing Gabiddon, Upson, Boa Morte, Spector to name a few can't be much of a loss. I think it was more in terms of numbers that we had to rebuild from scratch.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by DaveWHU1964 »

wizzo_66 wrote:
Not doubting your overall assessment that it's difficult to bounce back to the PL, but we didn't lose our biggest assets imho.

We kept Green, Tomkins, Noble, Cole who were the only players of any significance other than Parker of course.

Losing Gabiddon, Upson, Boa Morte, Spector to name a few can't be much of a loss. I think it was more in terms of numbers that we had to rebuild from scratch.
I agree with much of what you say Wizzo. That's why I put 'virtually' before 'start again'. Whilst we did lose our best players imho- Parker and Ba, for me much of the rebuilding involved strengthening the mentality of the likes of Carlton. From what I saw that season it worked, the most obvious beneficiaries of this 're-programming' were Reid and Tomkins.

But I take your point- I was reacting to the comment that seemed to make out we are an established Premier League team when sadly we aren't.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by irving boleyn »

Maiga should not be made the scapegoat.

How many strikers have fallen out of favour because our Direct approach is really only appropriate to the BMUF system?

He showed no exceptional quality on Saturday but was neat when going deep for the ball,as he had to, and fearless and sometimes successful in combating with their two strong centre backs. Missed a good header chance,but no worse than other players missed in previous weeks. Most heading opportunities go begging but the player will be judged on his percentage scored over a longer period than Maiga has had.

Similarly at the other end,Noble is being criticized. All the midfield was outclassed by a pressurising Stoke team, but I suggest his contribution was the greater than the others.

It was not very dissimilar to several recent games, Cardiff was an exception for some reason. No penetration from the offensive midfielders being the glaring weakness...this hasn't been addressed during this window..

I can't see any other striker that we can afford making a difference unless its another BMUF,who we can gamble on getting on the end of a few punts.

We've recently not been so critical of this kind of performance because there has been a kind bounce or a bit of quality,mainly by Cole,which has got us a point or two, and the result has overshadowed the performance.

Think we aren't making the required progression toward established Premier status at the moment, which should be in place before Stratford.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by HammerMan2004 »

To be fair to the criticism directed at Maiga. Anything delivered to his feet he couldn't deal with either.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by James P »

I thought Maiga actually got his head on a fair few of the long punts up to him from Jussi and Collins against very big physical centre backs.

Maiga had a bit of a shocker overall, but he wasn't the main problem imo. The problem was the midfield who simply didn't show up. Stoke were spraying the ball about around the centre of the park and we weren't. Simple as that. Everytime we got an offside decision or a foul against their forwards, Collins or Jussi pumped the ball long. There was no showing from the midfield and very, very few periods of retained possession. Carroll would have struggled to make an impact on Saturday so poor were the five players surrounding, with the possible exclusion of Noble. Bit harsh to make Maiga the scapegoat for the day.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by bubbles1966 »

Our midfield has been shocking in possession for most of the season and doesn't gain or maintain control of the ball.

We have the worst pass completion rate in the league. Every fourth pass is a loss of possession. Our midfield 3 are all comfortably ensconsed in the lower half of the PL pass success table.

Possession: 44.4 % (16th) - bear in mind who we've played
Pass accuracy: 72.4% (20th)
Shots per game; 11 (16th)
On Target: 1.7 (19th)
Tackles won: 15.7 (16th)
Interceptions won: 8.3 (18th)
Successful dribbles: 10.7 (7th)
Crosses: 20 (12th) - bear in mind we have the two most individually prolific crossers in the league for 3 seasons

Our back 5 and our defensive workrate and shape is what is keeping us in games.

Aerial duels: 26.7 won (1st equal)
Clearances - Reid and Collins are both in the top 11 in the league.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by Bobby Orangeboom »

When you have the most passes over 25 yards per % of your total number of passes, you're always likely to lose possession of the ball, as you have less control of it as there are much more chance of it being intercepted or not finding a WHU shirt.

That's our tactical plan and our attacking strategy, which works as we saw last season.

We look to get the ball back to front as quick as football and try to play our football there, that's the reason Mark Noble out of any central midfielder in the country passes the ball forward with the biggest % of his passes.

It's why Nolan doesn't pass the ball that much per game, because we bypass playing through him as he feeds on loose balls in the final third and doesn't contribute a great deal to the build up play.

We don't try and build up play as much as other clubs do, all other clubs in truth, that's why we don't pass as much as them and it's why our passing accuracy % are low as we pass the ball forward more than any other club too and when you pass the ball forward, you're not going to complete as many as if you're passing sideways and backwards, like all the other clubs do more than us...
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by Estuary »

We got mullered in midfield, and when our wingers got crosses in the attacking players didn't make anything of them. Miaga was awful, as he has been at both home games. Reid had two good chances, one a far post header, which he fluffed, and a volley, which was a harder chance, but a chance non the less. OBrien also wasted a good chance when he blasted over when in a good shooting position.
Stoke were better than us all over the park, Nzonzi ran the midfield until Morrison came on and we got a bit of possession and drive. We got what we deserved, nothing, but the kid looked good, which is the only good thing to come from the game.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by sendô »

KFC Kirky wrote:Maiga is clearly not the man to play on his own up top.
It's worrying that it's seemingly taken until two days before the end of the window for Allardyce to realise this.

If Carroll doesn't get fit quick, and stay fit, I can see this being a very long season. We've got an awful lot resting on just one player at the moment.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by Hockley Hammer »

We could get away with playing Maiga up front if everybody else in the front five did their jobs as they did against Cardiff. On Saturday I don't think any of the midfield did their job properly and I don't think there is a forward on earth who would look good if that is the case. Vastly unfair to pin the blame on him. My opinion of Maiga has still not changed from the first time I saw him. Running at people with the ball at his feet he is ok, with his back to goal looks uncomfortable. I've seen good footballers at all levels struggle to play as a targetman when that is not their position. I'm sure that if our midfield had been average we would not have lost that game, i thought we might have to take a point and move on but we contributed all round to our own downfall.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by Hockley Hammer »

Also looking at the league table this morning having lost all interest after that shambles on Saturday, I was astounded to see that after three games there are only three unbeaten teams in the PL and one of them is below us.

I think it puts our result in perspective in as much as it's a wake-up call that we are not good enough to just turn up and expect to win at home. But also that the quality throughout the league is not that great.

I cannot see that our midfield can play that badly again, especially when Morrison looked an improvement on all of them when he came on.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by Morocco Mole »

Bobby Orangeboom wrote:When you have the most passes over 25 yards per % of your total number of passes, you're always likely to lose possession of the ball, as you have less control of it as there are much more chance of it being intercepted or not finding a WHU shirt.

That's our tactical plan and our attacking strategy, which works as we saw last season.

We look to get the ball back to front as quick as football and try to play our football there, that's the reason Mark Noble out of any central midfielder in the country passes the ball forward with the biggest % of his passes.

It's why Nolan doesn't pass the ball that much per game, because we bypass playing through him as he feeds on loose balls in the final third and doesn't contribute a great deal to the build up play.

We don't try and build up play as much as other clubs do, all other clubs in truth, that's why we don't pass as much as them and it's why our passing accuracy % are low as we pass the ball forward more than any other club too and when you pass the ball forward, you're not going to complete as many as if you're passing sideways and backwards, like all the other clubs do more than us...
What's frustrating is that if you swapped Nolan for say Joe Cole or Rav you'd have a front six more than capable of knocking the ball around.

Whether that approach would prove more effective remains to be seen of course.....
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by prophet:marginal »

...and perhaps the problem with that frustration turn of events is that the people you offer up as potential replacements are a part-time sicknote and young-ish prospect respectively.

Its bad enough having no back up for Carroll, but having little chance of mixing things up with his strike partner is no help either.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by Bobby Orangeboom »

prophet:marginal wrote:...and perhaps the problem with that frustration turn of events is that the people you offer up as potential replacements are a part-time sicknote and young-ish prospect respectively.

Its bad enough having no back up for Carroll, but having little chance of mixing things up with his strike partner is no help either.
Agree.

Best squad for years my arse.
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Re: West Ham United v Stoke City: Match Thread

Post by irving boleyn »

Nolan has never scored more than 11 in the Prem..so its not inconceivable that Cole or Vaz could equal that AND provide a few assists.
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