Former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher has torn into West Ham ahead of the Merseysiders arriving at the London Stadium on Saturday evening.
He was talking on Sky Sports Monday Night Football and looking back on the game at Selhurst Park he said: “Crystal Palace battered them really, I mean they were lucky to get a point. ”
Refusing to take any prisoners at all he added: “There’s a lot of teams near the bottom of the league and you can make a case for them not going down but I’m struggling with West Ham.
‘They are getting a little bit close, too close for comfort to teams we’ve actually slaughtered over these last few years, your Sunderland’s, your QPRs when you’ve watched them and it’s really poor.
‘They are the one team I would massively worry about in terms of relegation because it doesn’t look like there’s much there.
Carragher also took a swipe at the recruitment policy and issues behind the scenes saying: ‘At that club there’s always a problem, you haven’t got a clue who is buying players.
“It looks a bit of a shambles behind the scenes at times. And it always feels as though Slaven Bilic is only one game away from a crisis.’
And Sky pundit Gary Neville spoke out against the lack of effort he’d seen from some players in the match against Palace.
He said: “When you see this and then point back to QPR, Sunderland, Aston Villa, they sort of make you sick to the pit of your stomach because they’re privileged to play football and the idea that you just jog back, you don’t run back, the manager is fighting for his job, the fans are there, it’s unbelievable.
He was referring specifically to the late equaliser where a number of players were caught up the pitch looking for a third goal but failed to track back.
I have to agree with them, the club is in a mess! The board and manager have all got to go! Am fed up with all the lies and promises the club come out with!!!
can’t see anything to disagree with there.
If the owners don’t want the lkes of Koeman then they are going to need to fork out whatever it takes to get a guy already in a job. Otherwise we are looking at another Avram Grant situation where they don’t think he’s good enough but leave him in place anyway with a disastrous outcome
I saw this last night and what Jamie Caragher said was dead true – he showed two occurences at the end of the game where West Ham broke down the right with the ball with Mikhael Antonio. On both occassions there was a weak cross gathered by Crystal Palace who broke quickly. On the second time Palace scored. The worrying thing was that on both occassions West Ham had six players ahead of the ball – you wonder what the players were trying to do, definitely not playing with their heads, so to speak, madness.
The other big thing mentioned was the Stats of West Ham’s play – we were bottom in distance covered, and sprints and nineteenth in age of the team and goals lost in the last ten minutes. Devastating reading, the players are not fit and are not working hard enough, which Carragher was saying may not be the players fault because of their age – that’s down to the recruitment.
Talking of Recruitment, Carragher pointed out that the Clubs dealings have been shambolic, no one knows who buys the players, and a lot of it seems to be crazy.
The Club’s in a mess – Carragher spoke the truth – it’s very worrying!
Not just true against Palace has been true in almost every match since after Christmas of his first season in charge (and sometimes before that), players just not making the required effort to get back into a defensive shape and never anybody closing the ball down around the 18 yard box.
Yes they are correct!
I am worried about relegation, & u look at Championship now there are big spenders we can’t afford to go down & we shouksny be worried about it w this squad even tho thin we have class youngsters.
And when u see the newly promoted sides 2 of which we have lost 3-0 too they are doing very good & looks like they all could stay up & 2 of them have players & mgrs w no real PL experience.
Add that we are 20th in distance covered, Sprints, 19th in avg age, & long balls. We don’t look fit, work rate is horrific but supposedly the players are still playing for the manager I don’t believe it.
Noble said we should be able to beat Brighton without a manager. Was he saying we are better of w/o Bilic?
We don’t need a world beater right now but we need a COACH who will train & run drills till its reflex, Organise & plan B & C. Not worry about hurting feelings if don’t chose certain players, & works in positions.
I would be offering Chris Wilder a job & Jokanovic who would love chance to pick players & be in PL. Schubert, Enrique (why not try) Montella, Beilsa, Brendan Rogers has done has much as he can in SPL, there are choices. Mgr change gives u 3-6 points which could be the diff of staying up. And Bilic could take the US National job.
Shambles is right!
I’ve got this clip on my Sky Planner, if anyone knows how to get it off I’d willingly make it available for everyone to see – although there might be problems with Sky – it would open up a lot of eyes!