ELQ2: West Ham Utd 1-0 Birkirkara (16/07/15)

[WHUJohn]

I honestly don't get what JOB ever really does wrong. Last night was no different.

A proper proper solid, premier league back up standard footballer. Takes responsibility in his position & is never scared to ask for the ball. The sort of lad for me who epitomises a mid table team rather than a bottom six. A deluxe version of Jonathan Spector or Hayden Mullins, if you will.

One positive from last night was the attempts at piping up "Claret & Blue Army" with Slav's name attached.

Agree with others on the amazing number of latecomers to this one. The East Stand had people still aimlessly wandering around looking for their seats on the 30 minute mark*

*I'm guessing as the electronic boards were ****ed the first whole half!!!! :lol:

He's not fashionable enough for so many of the sky gen.

The O is in the middle of his name, not the end.

[ooh look who it is]

I thought first half we played well and could and should have been out of sight.

Second half ran out of ideas and got frustrated.

These Europa league games despite lack of goals are giving our lads a good workout.

[Dyl]

First thought is always to go backwards. No creativity and attacking players looked sluggish and terrified to actually try and do anything other than the most basic 5 yard pass sideways or back. We were playing a very very poor pub team and looked awful, sinking to their level, falling over the ball/tripping over our own feet/refusing to move at anything other than a slow jog. The second half was genuinely embarrassing to watch.

[mumbles87]

The thing that concerned me was in the warm up they had shooting practice where they laid out wide and crossed in for a header constantly. It's like they setting up to do this . Waste of warm up we know we can do that focus on hitting the target

[Cardiff here we come.....]

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[Mexico29]

How many games to we play before people stop making excuses?

no idea, probably more than a few preseason games with kids in the team[/quote]

How many kids played last night?

[Ben]

Are the Maltese lot in pre-season too or is their season already underway?

[Kludgehammer]

I thought he looked terrified to be on the pitch. He wanted rid of the ball most of the times he received it and was easily tackled and hustled off the ball. He didn't add anything and as some have said he actually made us worse as a team.

Eh?

He was on for about 25 minutes, wasn't he? 18 & making his debut in front of a packed crowd. But even then, in all honesty, I didn't see him really get tackled.. I saw him overlapping with Cresswell in an area where nothing much was coming from anyway. Neither before or after he came on.

I think my simian colleague is being a bit harsh - Samuelson did start very tentative, but he did get better towards the end. Conversely, I don't think he offered much overlapping other than as a diversion - he just looked to pass the ball back every time - he looked much better when he ran at the penalty area.

Still, first competitive fixture for the lad - much slack required at this stage.

[Faubert's Boot]

I counted zarate hogging the ball in the final third 5 times, and all of those times were completely understandable considering the lack of movement and initiative from the players around him.

He passed way more than he hogs, and he was heavily involved in some of our key moves, plus he went out wide to offer support regularly. Really can't see what he done wrong and I honestly think people expect him to play a certain way based on his reputation and are therefore biased in their judgement.

[roblo]

Wrong thread

[e17]

Kludgehammer

Agree with all of that on the new kid - & most of your analysis in general, nice one mate!

[Up the Junction]

They had a lot of small geezers, those Maltesers.

[mattjp]

Jarvis is so one-dimensional these days it's hard to believe. Last night's performance is as good as you're ever going to get from him, in as much as he will jink this way and that until he can float a cross into the box. If Carroll or Sakho had been playing last night, that would have been fine, but they weren't, so cross after cross was being cleared and Jarvis had no Plan B. Incredibly frustrating.

[ooh look who it is]

They had a lot of small geezers, those Maltesers.

That little pitbull racing around upfront. He was lively.

[Aztec Hammer]

Amazed me how tiny Miccoli was. His boots looked like they started at the bottom of his shorts.

Noble towered over him!

[Mexico29]

Jarvis is so one-dimensional these days it's hard to believe. Last night's performance is as good as you're ever going to get from him, in as much as he will jink this way and that until he can float a cross into the box. If Carroll or Sakho had been playing last night, that would have been fine, but they weren't, so cross after cross was being cleared and Jarvis had no Plan B. Incredibly frustrating.

He doesn't cross the ball based on who is in the team that is the problem. Last night he did what he was clearly told to do, get round the back and get the ball in the box - the problems were, Nolan was 10 yards outside the box 90% of the time, had Maiga in the box by himself, 2, Jarvis was hanging the ball up as if he had Carroll or Sakho steaming in to get on the end of it. He didn't think, hold on, the keeper is taking all these crosses, lets mix it up a bit, it was hang it up, hang it up, hang it up for 90 minutes.

[prophet:marginal]

I counted zarate hogging the ball in the final third 5 times, and all of those times were completely understandable considering the lack of movement and initiative from the players around him.

He passed way more than he hogs, and he was heavily involved in some of our key moves, plus he went out wide to offer support regularly. Really can't see what he done wrong and I honestly think people expect him to play a certain way based on his reputation and are therefore biased in their judgement.

Stop it Faubs, will ya? He's a dud who should be paying us to be in the shop window.

[Row X]

My two pence worth...

Yes it was embarrassing last! But I'm not talking about the team or their performance, I'm talking about the so-called fans that were around me on the BML!

I get to my seat just on KO as usual, exchange the usual pleasantries with a few of the usual crowd that sit (stand) around me... However the un-usauls, that I'm hoping were only there as it was £10 a ticket, made the game unbearable!

It all started off OK, they even sang "Slaven Bilic's Claret and Blue Army".

Then the inevitable happened when we hadn't scored after 10 minutes... Every player on the park was a grade A c**t according to them.

Even when players did something that merited a clap for a good piece of play, good ball, turn into space, tackle made was met with "not good enough you c**t! If it was Nolan, the word fat was also used, which I thought was ironic, as some of these 'men' would love to be as fat as Nolan.

I admit some players were frustrating last night, Maiga and his inability to learn the offside rule really frustrates at times. Then he smacks one against the post, which was really unlucky.... but not for those around me, "he should have buried it".

Half time comes, so does the booing.... embarrassing!

2nd half comes, and now the "Slaven Bilic's Claret and Blue army" has changed to "We are West Ham's Claret and Blue Army", in an hour, the support for our new man has gone... classy at times are some West Ham fans.

Finally, Jarvis beats his man, get to the dead ball line, crosses to the middle, where Nolan has made a great run to get on the end of the cross and as he's about to hit the ball with a left foot volley when a defender, lets say, eases Nolan off of his balance and the volley doesn't connect. Now Nolan is a "Massive fat c**t!" Funny that, because if he was that big how did their defender put him off balance?

Sub Nolan off, more booing.

Pass back to our keeper to keep the ball instead of lumping it up, a la Alladyce football, more booing. One bloke even tried to start "what a load of rubbish" luckily that didn't catch on.

One of the regulars said to me "We could go and sign Messi and Ronaldo, and some people would still boo them!"

We won a game in pre-season, with a lot of players that probably will not be in the 1st team squad come to the game at The Emirates in 3 weeks time. Let's get real here.

We have one last season at the old place, our home! Can we please make it memorable for all the right reasons! Lets get behind the 11 players on that hallowed turf, whoever they are, and really make this season one where you look back and say the ground was really rocking! I know some of you will say, that the players performances will help get the crowd up, but lets go into every game this season and make it a party atmosphere.... we don't have too many opportunities left to do that at the old place.

Sorry for the ramble....

Get behind the team

[e17]

They had a lot of small geezers, those Maltesers.

That number 10 was only small in height, definitely not width :lol:

Like the lovechild of Dicksy & Nolan, fed on kebabs

[IngatestoneHammer]

Went last night ...BMU ...from there you could see the lack of movement up front and in midfield which resulted in the ball going sideways and backwards most of the night.

Maiga offered absolutely nothing .....didn't trouble their defenders with his presence ...or pull any of them out of position with decoy runs to create space for others......no running the channels either.

The midfield was very ponderous and predictable ...hence it was easy for them to just drop back and make it hard for us to break them down.

Whilst it was nice to see us try and break them down with football ...we didn't pressurise them enough with sustained periods of pressure .....i.e. constant corners ..or pinning them with closing them down in their half.

I also noticed that we lacked any kind of " 3rd man running" in midfield ......the ball was always the " safe" ball....slow ball..predictable ball.

Few options were presented for our midfield or defence when bringing the ball out.

I hope this is just because we're " pre-season" .....but come the season ...and future rounds we are going to have to play faster and smarter on the ball.

Come the season and the next Euro games I hope the new faces will help up our game.