friday's news 9th march includes west ham

[Up the Junction]

Think you are a touch harsh on Faye

No slur on Faye ... he's only following orders.

Sam appears to have decided the opposition will park the bus.

Which, surprisingly perhaps, few have.

The frustrating thing for me is we have at times this season played some good football .Some of it, really good .

Absolutely.

[MB]

He needs to have a word with his boss about that one, not us.

Yep, they are only following orders. If the midfield are told to sit static 15 yards from the back four then the only options for the centre halves are to bring the ball out themselves (which Tomkins did a couple of times and nearly got caught out), to play it to a marked fullback (the hospital ball) or to thump it up to Cole.

It is not long ball I have the issue with, it is the risk free rigid approach we adopt. We ripped them apart three times from situations where the start of the move was the ball going into Cole's feet from midfield yet we insisted on hitting long balls up to Cole who would flick them on for players (Nolan and his strike partner) who I can only assume had been told not to take a risk and get beyond him!

Lining up for a home game with Watford with the idea of not losing will not get us automatic promotion. Someone needs to point out to Sam that you are better off winning every other game than you are drawing all of them.

[Cuenca 'ammer]

I mentioned after Sunday's game that our back four do not much of anything other than play the ball long to the Lump at C/f or into a channel where no one really can get at it. The other team get a throw, they're 100 yards from our goal. We win it we're closer to theirs.

Faye played so many balls into the stands on Sunday that his one pass that actually found a team mate was that ball to Vaz Te. That was about the sum total of it.

I also mentioned on the match thread after Faye's comments that on the wireless things came through pretty decently and that maybe he was taking poetic licence about the 2 minutes.

Clive Walker who isn't bad (but then again after Dicksy anyone sounds decent) said that it is a lot of times up to players to lift the crowd. We lacked "that bit of quality" on Wednesday. Now I don't wish to draw conclusions based upon a wireless commentary but he made a lot of sense, didn't seem to be overly dramatic and wasn't particularly anti us or pro them. Seemed to call it about how he saw it it seemed. Mentioned we hardly ever won a second ball which was confirmed by Pinky earlier.

So perhaps, the crowd do expect "above average performances" but to be fair, the team are getting above average crowds.

Sorry cheers by the way CH...

[dapablo]

cheers CH

[kel]

Let's move the stand back on to the edge of the pitch if we want fortress upton park back

I agree, the atmosphere has never been the same since the development of the ground for all-seater. I don't believe it's the lack of standing, but the distance from the pitch that has resulted in the loss of those intimidating nights under the lights.

[hammerjohn]

Thanks CH.

As fans we all think of what it takes to get out of the Championship,
and the simple fact that we have a Premiership team this Season.

We can't lose sight of that, because should we somehow screw it up and not get promoted automatically , we then have the play offs !
If we somehow don't get promoted we will lose our best players who like Scott Parker only want to play in the Premier league,
and the replacements will be journeymen on the last lap of their careers.

So I don't see the fans being disloyal to West Ham, they are looking at next Season and where we want to be.
We need our team to play well but also finish off the opposition when we have the chance.
It can be very frustrating at times watching West Ham, playing great football at times, dominating the game and still conceeding goals from set pieces, and then reverting to the longh ball game that suits the opposing team more than our forwards.

Just a thought.

[nobleforengland]

cheers CH

[splott]

Personally I think Faye should just get on with playing footy and keep his opinions over the supporters to himself. We are the ones who have been around donkeys years and if he decided to have a look at what happens in the past he will maybe understand that if they deem to play some decent footy (whether it be down to BFS instructions or not) with some heart then then support will be better than anywhere. Frustrations boil over due to the poor standard of footy and if you look at the stats the poor passing and diabolical finishing. We just don't seem to have anyone that gets everyone going nowadays,no player who is exciting,although I do think Baldock is a good possibility for this role,but of course he doesn't get enough playing time.
Just a bit of whinge really.!!!

[RyanWHUFC]

Cheers CH