Saturday 9 May 2009

The Day The Wheels Came Off


So, this was the day the wheels came off - but then we were playing Liverpool so what do you expect? There was the West Ham coach, sitting in the queue for the ferry to Europe, engine chugging a little under the strain of so many worn parts, when in 76 seconds flat, the Scousers had jacked up the bus and whipped off the wheels. From that point forward, there was only going to be one outcome.

Yes Liverpool were clinical but the defeat was down to us more than down to any brilliance from the team destined to finish runners up in the Premiership. The Torres pass to Gerrard was good but Kovac checked his own run and did nothing about Gerrard's, raising his hand in a "Please sir it was me" gesture as Gerrard galloped onto the ball. Upson was half a yard deeper than the rest of the defence and Gerrard said "Ta very much".

The second goal summed up Boa perfectly. Yes of course he should have had a free kick when Mascherano cut him in two, but why he then charged into his own box and tugged and pulled and pushed at Torres until he went to ground, only Boa can explain. Except Boa probably doesn't think he did anything wrong. He was still in the red mist of the earlier incident. What reason he possesses, and it is precious little at the best of times, had evaporated completely in the furnace of his indignation.

Boa was poor all game. Yes he put in a number of challenges but his distribution was absolutely dire. In that he was not alone. Did Lucas pass to a player in Claret & Blue all night? Defensively he was okay, except for the two times he went walkabout, but his passing radar was all to cock tonight as, time and time again, he lost possession in the twenty or so yards beyond the half way line.

Mind you, who did he have to pass to? Tristan was moderate and Di Michele was, once again, bloody awful. How ridiculous was his attempt to claim a penalty after his risible attempt to capitalise on Carrragher's slip? That has to be one of the worst efforts on goal followed by one of the worst dives ever. He should have been sent off three times over - for the professional foul on himself when clean through on goal, for the dreadful dive and ludicrous appeal for a penalty, but most of all for "gross incompetence on a football field"! I would say that he should never be picked again but what is the alternative? Sears? The boy runs around but that's about it isn't it?

In midfield Stanislas was again found wanting. I hope I am wrong but I fear he will be a Fizzy Pop player one day soon. Noble was combative and drove the team forward but his set piece delivery was decidedly average. Kovac missed our second best chance and was hopelessly at fault for the opening goal. Collison, thankfully, looked class when he came on. We need him against Everton and Miserableboro.

Green was excellent, in front of Fabio, and was desperately unlucky with the penalty. Upson and Tomkins were okay but neither will remember the game fondly. Ilunga did ok too. But it was not a day to remember all round.

The bus to Europe is now jacked up on piles of bricks. Wasn't Cole meant to be targeting this game for his return? Wasn't there talk from Zola of pressing Beano into action before the end of the season? Where exactly is Dyer? Why have we bought Savio exactly?

Suddenly Calais seems a very long way away!

Player Ratings: Green 8; Neill 5; Upson 6, Tomkins 6, Ilunga 7; Boa 3: Kovac 5; Noble 7, Stanislas 4; Tristan 5, Di Michele 0 Subs: Collison 8, Sears 5; Payne (Unfair to rate!)

33 comments:

Life of Iron said...

Lets be honest Europe was always a long way off with the injuries ect ect but there's two games to go and we'll see, but lets not start dishing the blame out, the lads have done us proud this term and if they had a bad day at the office so be it, i'd rather they had that bad day against LFC than boro we can still pick another 6 points up, and if you're really honest did you expect anything from this game!

Hammersfan said...

No mate I didn't. But the game did show a huge gulf in class and indicated that we need a lot of strengthening in the summer. We need a fit Cole, Behrami, Collison, Ashton and Dyer. We also need 4 signings, not counting Kovac. Fingers crossed the money is there and the players have been identified. Di Michele? Put him on the ferry!

Life of Iron said...

Couldn't agree with you more about Di Michele he flatters to deceive and should be a midfielder as soon as the guy gets on goal he fluffs it (for want of a better term), but as you say (cole, behrami, collison, dyer,ashton are all injured so maybe with a fully fit first 11 and all the younglings things don't look to bad!

Anonymous said...

Oi mug no mention of Tottenham or the league table.

Life of Iron said...

Oi your right so i suppose this article didn't turn up on the spuds newsnow and your just here to be a twat

Life of Iron said...

lets be honest if i was sad enough to be a spud i'd be really proud that my team had dragged them self s off the bottom of the league and caught up with their poor rivals with only 2 games to go and only on goal diff after spending £188m the third most expensive squad in the prem and bragging about being 8th behind Fulham albeit on a temp basis, Well i'd like to say well done spuds i'm very impressed and maybe next year you can actually get in front of us with 3 games to go and only try to spend say £60m in the summer

Anonymous said...

i think you summed up the game quite well, and when di Michele missed that oppo when the man i said was rubbish (Carragher) slipped up majorly i told my brother that he should go back to Torino now. I have to disagree slightly on Boa Morte though, he was one of our most threatening players, even if he only got the free-kicks awarded. Neill had a very mixed game, some of his passing was dreadful, but then again some of his link up play was alright. Why Stanislas was on the left i don't know, he clearly doesn't have the ability on his left foot. Blinder from GReen, again.

Anonymous said...

Where are west ham in the league?? Behind spurs yeahhhhh. About time - we did the double on ya yet again and now after the worst start in are history and you lot avin the best season in your history we have ended above you lololololol. Btw hammersfan nice honest assesment on what you need - only a few days it was four inexspensive signings from being champions lololololol. You spent the whole season above us and you f****d it up. Next season obviously we will do the double over you again but we should end around thirty points above you. 'no noise from the..........'
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR ARE ABOVE YOU

Life of Iron said...

What a tit need i say more

Anonymous said...

After reading that report I have a sneaking suspicion that this is ANOTHER match you didn't go to.

Life of Iron said...

what an illiterate f#ck wit, i doubt it's your worse ever start as you have been relegated on more than one occasion and the sad fact that you are so elated that your above WHU speaks volumes about how insecure you are as a spuds fan knowing that you spend more money than 17 other teams inthe league year in year out and the beat you can do in the premier league is 5th twice and that's it and you should not expect it to get any better with everton' man city,villa,fulham,and yours truly pushing don't expect to ever get to 5th again you have spent the money and tried and failed and you'll fail again and again, so keep blowing your chairmans money while harry just blows your chairman, ooh danny

Anonymous said...

You shouldn't be bitter spenerc. your time would be better spent focusing on your market stool lololololol - no swearing btw, hammersfan can you tell him pls - spurs are above you btw :-)

Life of Iron said...

it's market STALL you dumb ass and i'm not bitter, we were talking about the game and turds like you start your bitter sh#t because you have drawn level on points (WELL DONE),go lay some carpet you uneducated twot

Anonymous said...

Sorry mate didnt mean to put your job down - stall it is, well let's call you a market stall executive. As for me coming on here as per hammersfan all non spammers are welcome. Look mate just because nine times out of ten we beat you and nine times out of of ten we end above you, you shouldn't be bitter and start crying. For you to be top half is remarkable and I'm sure an open top bus parade will follow and rightly so and with a crap totally inexperienced manager I'm sure you will do well next season - but as I said stop crying all the time.

Anonymous said...

are you seriously joking, boa morte was poor? what game were you watching? he didnt give the ball away as much as you are making out. i thought boa was excellent, just like the west ham team. i cant understand what more you expect from a team who has key injuries meaning it was filled up with half the youth team of last season. liverpool were on fire their goalscoring form is phenomenal. what do you expect, give the team some credit rather than go "oh how disappointing." look how much money theyve spent in comparison to ourselves and we beat them in possession. young josh payne and stanislas were confident on the ball and tomkins gave torres a tough evening. well done zola im realistic and just love the football we play.

Life of Iron said...

no crying here spud boy and yes we do have an inexperienced manager and it's still taken you 36 games to catch us and it's still not over yet sad boy, so on reflection next our manager will be more experienced so i doubt whether you'll get close a bit like last year eh and you may beat us on a regular basis and lucky for you other wise you would be 6 points behind and by the way I work for a company called emerson look it up on the internet you stool

Life of Iron said...

anyway back to the game i thought we played pretty well and the youngsters did good the real test will be against the other side of liverpool and boro the spuds should draw against man city so if we get 3pts everything is looking rosier again

Anonymous said...

pikey love....always behind tottenham love

Bubble9 said...

I don't usually waste my time writing on meaningless Wet Spam blogs, but I just had to this time. All season we spurs fans have been bombarded on our blogs by you idiots throwing every foul mouthed jibe in our direction that your teeny weeny little minds could think of. Everything from how you are a bigger club to the fact that you were above us in the league to even making comments about gas chambers and the holocaust. Well my jellied eel eating friends where are the jibes now. We gave you an 8 game start and still caught up with you in the league. After the worst ever start to our season and one of the best ever seasons in Wet Spams pretty non-existent history, we are level in the league. Add to that a good Uefa cup run only dismissed by our 'Arry for more important matters (who knows how far we could have gone) and a Cup final, our season hasn't turned out too badly. By the way, I am not elated that we are above you in the league, you really are that unimportant to us, I'm just glad that I can ram all your tedious moronic jibes back down your throats that we have had to put up with this season. Well now hopefully you will keep away from our blogs as you really haven't got anything left to say. And as Zola will probably make the move to Chelski in the summer and you lot will implode with all your debts and compensation payouts you may end up getting relegated next season and go back to where you really belong and play the likes of Charlton and Millwall. Now theres a couple of London derbies more suitable for the likes of you. Toodlepip.

el martillo said...

I thought we played some good football against Liverpool and had we had a striker worthy of the name we may just have got something from the game. One thing I do not understand is why Stanislas plays on the left and Boa on the right, they both want ot cut in all the time and that limits our width. Stanislas used to play on the right for the youth team.

Two players shone for me yesterday, Tomkins looks like the senior partner at the back and Noble is a much better player without Parker in the team. Let's hope City come back in for Parker in the summer, that money can be better spent elsewhere.

We gave away the first two goals yesterday, Kovac went to sleep (I still think he's getting an easy ride from the fans) and Boa yet again demonstrated why he is not premiership standard, how stupid and yet predictable was his action in giving away the penalty.....ridiculous, and that was the end of the contest.

I don't think many of us thought we'd get much out of this with Liverpool's season over if they didn't win, but I thought there were plenty of positives to take from it. Collisson looked good and Zola took the opportunity to give Payne a few minutes, he looks a confident lad, let's hope he can step up like the other young players have this season.

Anonymous said...

Why the hell would you want to sell Parker? He has been outstanding this season and has been badly missed lately.

el martillo said...

I agree Parker has been one of our best players but; he's injury prone, 30 years old and Noble plays much better without him in the team. We would get good money for him this summer, we may well see him in the treatment room more often than not next season. Cash in while we can.

Anonymous said...

Just because spurs are above you you are calling for zolas head - very sad
THFC is above you btw LOL

Balders said...

You have to laugh at the Spurs moron that says they will finish 30 points above us next season. That will make them challenging for the title. Sigh...where have I heard it all before? Only every pre-season. I suppose they will also be opening their new solid gold stadium on mars & play with a team of genetically engineered martian supermen, defeating the big four by seventeen goals to nil in each game. I have no more time to write as I have to go back to my market stall...oh wait, I am a sales manager that drives a Porsche, lives in the Middle East and has a team of 20 gorgeous Russian women for staff. So maybe I'll leave the stereotypes to someone else for now. Enjoy North London, (I come from there so I know how depressing the place is) I'm off to the beach...

Anonymous said...

upson was awful, and i hope all you spammers can now see why capello would of picked a fit king over this barrow boy...capello described king as "world class" recently....funny he has never paid the same accolade to upson.

Anonymous said...

12.05 do u realise how ridiculous you sound you blatant lier! lol....by the way, your house has a flat tyre, run along...

Anonymous said...

Lol I just read baldys comments - pmsl at that one. Clearly the fact that spurs have gone above you has led to you avin a few delusional moments LOL.

Sad gimp you are.

Denbighammer said...

I thought Green was desperatly unlucky with goals 2&3 - the ball could have gone anywhere but dropped perfectly for the opposition. I thought Boa was ok apart from his moment of madness. If DiMichele had scored I would have fancied our chances of getting a draw. I was disappointed that Zola didn't throw on more attackers earlier in the 2nd half and really go for it. Tristan was average but DDM was atrocious; when he missed that chance and then dived, people were howling with laughter. Our kids CANNOT be worse than him. If we do take him permanently in the summer then it will be the biggest statement the club could give that they are not actually serious about improving.

Hammersfan said...

Agree with all that Den except for the LBM assessment. I watched him very closely. Yes he was combative but his pass completion rate was truly awful and, as Marty says, he was always trying to come inside because he was playing on the wrong flank. Like Marty, I do not understand the logic of playing a right footed Stanislas on the left and a left footed Boa on the right. This seems to be a bit of a blind spot for Zola - he even tried playing Etherington on the right ffs and we know how good his right foot is!

el martillo said...

what about Noble, Scotty, do you agree he looks a much better player without Parker. I'd like to see him with a holding midfielder who sits and can pick a pass;someone like Carrick. In fact Carrick would be the perfect player for this team.

Hammersfan said...

LOL Carrick is a lovely idea. Hate to admit it but Wilson P would have been a good signing!

el martillo said...

Didn't answer my question about Noble, and where do you stand on Parker? (probably not the groin I think!)

Hammersfan said...

I think Noble played well yesterday. However, his lack of pace was cruelly exposed when twice having the opportunity to break into the box on the right hand side of the box. He checked and looked back. That is his Achilles heel sadly.

Parker I would sell if City bid big.