Wigan 1 West Ham Utd 0 (02/02/08)

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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wolf359
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by wolf359 »

hornsey wrote:seems that ashton was out wide alot yesterday.
why?
Both him and Cole came deep far too often, we often had no one up front with, playing 4-4-2 but 4 defenders, 4 defensive midfielders and 2 attacking mids.

More worrying for me was Freddie in the second half once Nobby came on. He refused to stay on the left wing, leaving that whole side of the pitch empty with just Linda to hold it together.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by hornsey »

some 442 that sounds.
no wonder they kept dropping.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by american 'ammer »

Did I watch the same game as some of you, because it seems as if the consensus on here is that Cole played better than Ashton. I don't really know what we expected from our strikers when they barely touched the ball, but when they did Cole gave it right back to Wigan, while Deano played clever passes that the rest of our players couldn't handle.

And what's this about Dean still wanting out? Didn't he show us with the badge kissing after his last goal? I'll believe he doesn't care when he says something, and not a minute before.

I'll love Cole for everything he has done for us so far, but in terms of quality, he simply isn't up there with Ashton. Not close. Once Bellamy was introduced for Cole we looked like we might score. Ashton came alive with a striker to work with, and Bellamy charged down errant passes and took over from Nobby's sloppy play on the right. It was our midfield that got bossed today, and our strikers can't magically produce goals without the ball. End of.

Dreadful pitch, dreadful performance, we all know that. But lets see Ashton - Bellamy next time out and find out what happens.

:crest:
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by nickkarkie »

Not read any of the thread but here are my thoughts.

I was very disappointed to see us start 442 with Deano and Cole up front. Why on earth would you change a winning team and a winning formation which is performing well and getting results? Cole should have been up top on his own with Deano and Bellamy on the bench.

I was very disapointed by the performance in general. 2nd to everything, didnt look up for it and didnt look at all comfortable playing 442. No gameplan or general idea of who was doing what.

Deano's performance was disgusting imo. Looked like he couldnt (or didnt want to) walk let alone run. Awful body language aswell. How on earth he stayed on and Cole got subbed I will never know.

IMO Mullins is not good enough and simply dosnt have enough about him to play in a 4 man midfield. He looked lost, gave the ball away easily and worst of all he was getting caught in posession. He can do the job of just sitting in front of the back 4 in 5 man midfield but imo he isnt good enough to do much more than that.

I thought Bellamy looked sharp and did more in 20 minutes than Ashton did all game
Could not agree more.

Mullins and Noble can not play in a 4 man midfield together, add etherington to that mix and you are looking at a weak midfield with no engine.

Mullins in front of the back 4 is class, Noble looks great when we outnumber the opposition in midfield (Similar to Lampard), but both are useless in a 4 because they dont make driving runs past the opposition.

Ashton is a lazy ****, Cole tries hard and has more often than not got the better of his opposing centre half, so we should have gone with the 5 in midfield.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by DannyboyDJL »

I thought Noble and Mullins were the ones who really struggled to cope with the pitch yesterday. We lacked pace so much, we couldn't beat them out wide or up top for pace.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by clarke »

A few points of note from clarke:

-Great journey there & back and some good banter on the trains
-Agree with Phil S - why does Cole get subbed every game?
-In the Cole/Ashton arguement. Based on techical ability people seem to be edging for Ashton (when he's fit) to be better than Cole. IMO Ashton is fit, he is just lazy, however does not have the 110% running of Harewood or Zamora to cover up for it. He has some nice touches, yes. But I really do prefer Carlton, the 30 yard track back & tackle that Vmixture pointed out sums it all up.
-I would have prefered the 4-5-1. It works, it has worked in the past. In the games, such as Man U, we start 4-5-1, then maybe bring Ashton on and go 4-4-2, but seem to revert back to 4-5-1 anyway in bringing Spector on.
-Noble seemed off the pace after he got an elbow in the face & seemed to lose his rag. He's quite a neat player, the pitch didn't help, esp. when he was in the area, he took a touch and the ball bobbled over his ****ing head. He tried hard, but it just wasn't his day.
-Frustating player for me was Etherington, just bottled the battle with Melchiot. Melchiot wasn't even being dirty as such, just hard. Etherington didn't even try and stick a foot in, or even draw a foul, just didn't want to know.
-Solano was also disappointing, crossing was surprisingly poor.
-Bellamy looked alright, just need to get his sharpness back, and will only come with more games,
-Anton saved us on many occaisions, he looked really good yesterday. Upson was also pretty good, but Anton really stood out. McCartney was a bit quiet, didn't seem to advance as he usually does, but probably down to Etherington and later on Ljungberg (who took the inside route), not going beyond Melchiot). Didn't think that Neill had that bad a game yesterday, won some important tackles.
-Yesterday, Green looked a bit scared with his kicking, hopefully on a better pitch this will not be an issue at all.
-Ljungberg played ok, however he didn't really seem to get in to the game for me, and therefore didn't really influence it, quality touch to play Bellamy in (should have done better).

Unfortunately it was just one of those days, I don't really want to dwell on it too much and am looking forward to the Birmingham game. If we look at say Liverpool game and vs Wigan as well, suppose most would have taken 3 points.

Finally, it was great to see a load of Kumbers up there yesterday. il_martello_di_genovesi - you should have come and said hello, Hadleigh Hammer did, although he probably only did it because he was slightly pissed :lol:
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by hornsey »

american 'ammer wrote:Did I watch the same game as some of you, because it seems as if the consensus on here is that Cole played better than Ashton. I don't really know what we expected from our strikers when they barely touched the ball, but when they did Cole gave it right back to Wigan, while Deano played clever passes that the rest of our players couldn't handle.

And what's this about Dean still wanting out? Didn't he show us with the badge kissing after his last goal? I'll believe he doesn't care when he says something, and not a minute before.

I'll love Cole for everything he has done for us so far, but in terms of quality, he simply isn't up there with Ashton. Not close. Once Bellamy was introduced for Cole we looked like we might score. Ashton came alive with a striker to work with, and Bellamy charged down errant passes and took over from Nobby's sloppy play on the right. It was our midfield that got bossed today, and our strikers can't magically produce goals without the ball. End of.

Dreadful pitch, dreadful performance, we all know that. But lets see Ashton - Bellamy next time out and find out what happens.

:crest:
i agree with everything you said here.
Ashton is quality, because he waits for the killer pass that never comes ( certainly from CC) he is reduced to holding back and crossing balls from the left.
We need to play to his strengths.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by delbert »

clarke wrote:A few points of note from clarke:


Finally, it was great to see a load of Kumbers up there yesterday. il_martello_di_genovesi - you should have come and said hello, Hadleigh Hammer did, although he probably only did it because he was slightly pissed :lol:
Were you standing by the bar in the stand for while before kick off, NS5/6 end ?
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by clarke »

hornsey wrote: Ashton is quality, because he waits for the killer pass that never comes ( certainly from CC) he is reduced to holding back and crossing balls from the left.
We need to play to his strengths.
Understand what you're saying. However, that will come when we've got Bellamy in the team, Noble on his game and making forward runs, and say Faubert, who's pace should be able to get in behind the full back easily.

At the moment I think it's more important to play to the strengths of the team as a whole as opposed to the strengths of Ashton.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by clarke »

delbert wrote: Were you standing by the bar in the stand for while before kick off, NS5/6 end ?
Yes.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by Het-Field »

In fairness, a rake of Norwich fans flooded this board two years ago warning us about Ashton's attitude. I dont want to see him go, and the reality is no top four club would put in for him. Others like Portsmouth and Everton have thier strikers. The only club who would come near him is Newcastle, and after today, I dont know why he would go there. AA move to SJP would be a horizontal move, or downward move.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by TrickyDicky »

having a good think about it the pitch was a major part to blame because west ham play best with the ball on the floor now, wigan are used to the **** pitch and used it to their advantage, kilbane didnt mean to get the goal, it was lucky.

Up Front is a major problem, Ashton aint doing for me and if i was Curbishley i wouldn't start him again anytime soon, Bellamy looked alot better than Ashton when he came on and without a doubt Bellamy is on another level compared to Cole an Ashton.

Cole has been doing well but dont score enough and proberly needs someone like bellamy alongside him, so for me its clear that cole and bellamy is the best option, its good that bellamy is going to start for wales and get a bit of match fitness.

Cole is similar to crouch if you like, he creates space for the other striker, gets a goal every now and then, but he wont score too many. Maybe Crouch's goal ratio is better but anyhow Cole does a simlar job.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by delbert »

I thought I recognised you from a pic off of here, I would have said hello but:-
1. I wasn't sure, and
2. I weren't gonna lose me place in the beer queue :lol:
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by clarke »

delbert wrote:I thought I recognised you from a pic off of here, I would have said hello but:-
1. I wasn't sure, and
2. I weren't gonna lose me place in the beer queue :lol:
Ha ha quality.

People climbing over the barriers - not cool!
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by Oldun »

So Villa lost at Fulham ,which in my eyes is a worse result than ours yesterday but what it proves is that there will be no easy games against teams down the bottom ,as we proved last year you have battle for every point and the best teams to play at this time of the season are the ones in the middle.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by bubbles1966 »

clarke wrote: Understand what you're saying. However, that will come when we've got Bellamy in the team, Noble on his game and making forward runs, and say Faubert, who's pace should be able to get in behind the full back easily.

At the moment I think it's more important to play to the strengths of the team as a whole as opposed to the strengths of Ashton.
Basically to get the best out of Ashton you have to drop our entire midfield and Cole , throw away a set up that has seen us compete with the top 4 and build a new team.

Alternatively, you leave out Ashton and stick with a team and set up that has beaten Liverpool and Man Utd and throughly outplayed Man City, and Chelsea for an hour.
because he waits for the killer pass that never comes ( certainly from CC)
To criticise Cole for Ashton's inadequacies is plain wrong. Deadly Deano has scored just 4 prem goals in 14 prem starts in his West Ham career when without Cole. 1 every 3.5 games. Surely, Cole cant be blamed for that?

His goal record at West Ham is actually better with Cole alongside him - its Cole (and the whole midfield) who suffer when partnering Ashton. Perhaps the killer pass is hiding in the same place as the centre forward's intelligent runs and clever movement?

Ashton simply is not the player some people think he is.

But every time he plays poorly its Cole's fault, it's the midfield's fault etc. Our other players who have given pretty much the best teams in the league a real game suddenly become bad players who cant pass etc in his company.

Curbishley has to play him to keep up the pretence that he is fit in the hope that someone (probably Bolton, Villa, Reading or Newcastle) will buy him in the summer and take on chance on him returning to his best.

Unless there is a dramatic upturn in his performances, commitment, fitness the exit door certainly beckons this summer with West Ham potentially taking a loss on him as his contract is running down.

I get the strong impression that Curbs doesn't really rate him but is trying to handle an increasingly small number of fans perception that he is a great player and the fact that Ashton's value drops with every injury and missed game.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by BedworthHammer »

Our deffence imo is as strong as it's been for many a year.Me for one yesterday found when Upson or Anton made a good tackle or intervention the high fives was great to see. Showing to me they are as one unit together proud of giving away only 21 goals.There partnership together is vital as we can't seem to score many at the other end.Maybe Bellany can change that.By the way £2.60 a pint in the ground spot on :lol: :lol:
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by Up the Junction »

Supersoulfighter wrote:Wait, Wigan have a real fan? :shock:
I guess he was here to see what a busy football forum looks like.

Suffice to say he'll not be coming back.
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by The Gibbins »

Clarke, i would have shook your hand yesterday, but i was covered in blood from a random nose bleed :lol: no tissue on the coach so just had to sit there bleeding for an hour.

RARS, i would have come down but you phoned me while i was tucking into a wigan pie...Pie>>>kumbers
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Re: Wigan v West Ham Utd: match thread

Post by Hammer Laffers »

THE GIBBINS wrote:
RARS, i would have come down but you phoned me while i was tucking into a wigan pie...Pie>>>kumbers

Don't lie, he told us the real, "Well I'm in my seat now and can't be bothered" reason why you didn't come down :lol: :wink:
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