It was a disappointing start for David Moyes as the Irons went under 2-0 at Vicarage Road.
Here Niall McDonald gives his ratings on the players during the first 90 minutes of Moysie’s reign
Hart: Fine save in first half. Magnificent save on the hour. Could have done better for the 2nd? 5
Zabaleta: Some brief glimpses of his quality down the right in the first half 5
Reid: Important deflection from a Gray shot. Couldn’t get close enough to Richarlison for his goal 5
Ogbonna: Did well I thought. Came out on top after a good tussle with Gray 6
Cresswell: Better defensive positioning than against Liverpool. Several of his long balls upfield gave Carroll no chance 5
Noble: Couldn’t get forward himself and regularly found nobody ahead of him in passing range 5
Obiang: Nervy start, shoved by Gray before the first. Woeful passing from start to finish 3
Kouyate: Denied by Gomes before the break. Horrible miss on 51 mins. Would have been crucial goals 5
Arnautovic: Much improved effort before suffering a clearly painful arm injury 6
Carroll: All aggression and frustration. Drew blood after 6 seconds, winded another on 7 mins, booked not long after 4
Lanzini: Played out wide left and his creativity was sorely missed in the middle 5Subs
Sakho: No more involved than Carroll. Not sure he even touched the ball 3
Masuaku: Immediate impact cutting a cross back for Lanzini’s chance. Looked sharp amongst some tiring team mates 5
Zabaleta: Some brief glimpses of his quality down the right in the first half 5
Reid: Important deflection from a Gray shot. Couldn’t get close enough to Richarlison for his goal 5
Ogbonna: Did well I thought. Came out on top after a good tussle with Gray 6
Cresswell: Better defensive positioning than against Liverpool. Several of his long balls upfield gave Carroll no chance 5
Noble: Couldn’t get forward himself and regularly found nobody ahead of him in passing range 5
Obiang: Nervy start, shoved by Gray before the first. Woeful passing from start to finish 3
Kouyate: Denied by Gomes before the break. Horrible miss on 51 mins. Would have been crucial goals 5
Arnautovic: Much improved effort before suffering a clearly painful arm injury 6
Carroll: All aggression and frustration. Drew blood after 6 seconds, winded another on 7 mins, booked not long after 4
Lanzini: Played out wide left and his creativity was sorely missed in the middle 5Subs
Sakho: No more involved than Carroll. Not sure he even touched the ball 3
Masuaku: Immediate impact cutting a cross back for Lanzini’s chance. Looked sharp amongst some tiring team mates 5
Kouyate and Obiang put in the worst performances I have seen for a long time, and considering the season we are having, that is saying something.
I thought Obiang had a decent game would have given him 6. In fact would give most of the team 6 out of 10 for effort, they are playing a different system and it will take them time to adapt. Watford looked very organised won nearly every second ball which is something I am sure Moyes will have picked up on, at Everton they were always positionally very strong but he has so many leaking holes to plug in this side to expect him to work miracles in less than two weeks id s big ask. On another day Gomes doesn’t make 3 world class saves, their second is disallowed for handball and we get a penalty we could have won 2 or 3 – 1 despite being the worse team.
Obiang have the ball away almost every time he touched the ball. He did not have a decent game.
If you analyse the stats after the game you will see that isn’t the case.
Allso thought obiang was poor first half. Slightly better second.
Agreed Obiang was awful. Not sure how you saw that as a good performance. Kept getting caught out and woeful passing. Got to get rid of Hart too. He is so slow to get down. The only reason his ‘wonder save’ looked good was because he took an age to react to it. Would have been comfortable for most. I’d like to see Adrian back. Much better on the distribution too.
Agree with Adrian, Obiang gave the ball away a few times when he tried to play players in up front but he retained it reasonably well, what I could see was him looking for options but wasn’t given many decent ones by Noble or Cresswell, he linked up well with Zab but Watford pressed the ball well and won pretty much every second ball. Silva even said that is the best Watford have played all season which having watched them quite a few times I would agree with, that doesn’t change the fact we made it easy for them but they were very impressive. Moyes needs time to fix the nightmare he has inherited, I thought we were better than previous but still playing massively below our capability.
I’ve always thought it’ll get worse before it gets any better and this proved to be the case. Although I think Watford are a pretty good team, big, strong and fit.
West Ham were shown up for what they are – slow, ponderous and plodding – the midfield in particular looked lifeless with Obiang, Noble and Kouyate being well of the pace.
Moyes has got a big job on and a limited and shallow Squad – we’re really in deep cack!
all I’ve read past few days that Moyes was working them hard in training was they blindfolded as today the passing was woeful in fact they made Watford look like Man City with there passing & our players standing & admiring them can see a mass exodus of players in January as alot look like they can’t be bothered I don’t understand why we sacked Bilic for the awful Moyes oh well at least the 3 muskets might of got the message from the travelling fans & hope they sell up & we might get a decent manager & players who want to play for the shirt I won’t hold my breath
The passing has been woeful for two seasons Norfolk, Moyes has an uphill struggle, at least he nailed it in the press conference some players have big reputations they didn’t show it and that level of play ain’t getting the job done.
I totally agree about Obiang and Kouyate, but cresswell was shocking, a massive problem is that the board have operated on the cheap and there is still no depth in the squad, so players who at bigger clubs would be rested after travelling thousands of miles on international duty are having, to play as there is no alternatives and Hart needs to spend some time on the bench or is this another piece of awful business and he is contracted to play every game????
I don’t see that Hart did anything wrong, he made a couple of good saves but the Team were under the cosh for long periods and the second goal was coming – another cross shot though!
Even though the defending was shambolic i think hart could have done more with the second goal and why is he permanently routed to his line, a good keeper makes the whole area his.
All the fools who said sack Billic as we should be top 6 May realise just how ridiculous top6 is now,we are a slow poor team,we are in big trouble as we can’t even rely on some home wins to get us out of trouble, can only wait for the charlatans who own our club to sell up and move on from this awful period
If you thought we should keep Billic, YOU are the fool
show me where I said Billic should have stayed
I’d have given Kouyate a 2 after that shambles. Total gash. Control and passing non existent. Missed a sitter. Offered nothing in the last half hour. Don’t recognise him from the player he used to be.
He’s not been interested for one and a half years. I would rather see Fernandes play, even though he is inexperienced.
generally agree with these ratings, but remember training was mostly in the international break, when a lot of players were away. We also are missing key players through injury. I would rather see the ratings after one week of the squad training together.
West Ham are a team in crisis. There was nothing different from them in this game than in any of Bilic’s games. Obiang was poor, Cresswell was worse. Kouyate does not look anything like the player he used to, Carroll was a liability. Noble played well & Arnautovic ? He was about the best West Ham player on show ! Hope the improvement in his performance continues. But, make no mistake about it, this team is nowhere near as good as the players think they are. Unless they put in some impressive performances, we will be relegated ! Overall, another poor performance.
Spot on.
Agreed
Noble played well . Are you blind . They played around him and left him for dead . He is now the worse player I have ever seen at the Club . Week after week same old ****e . He is a disgrace . Obiang had a bad game because he was trying to cover for his captains totally inept performance . P off noble and never come back .
Let me start with the management team, the team selection was terrible. How can you start with Carroll as a lone striker, how can you start with 3 midfielders when we had to win this game. 2-0 down with 20 mins to play and they still left 3 in midfield. They are no better than what we had – they are clueless and you get what you pay for – David’s what a shocking appointment and in Stuart Pearce we have someone who will actually turn the players off playing for the club. Joe Hart, Cresswell (our worst player by some distance), Noble and Carroll all need to be dropped for good. We need Adrian back in goals. I don’t see it happening as we have appointed English managers. We should have appointed a foreign manager who will not let nationality rule. Zaba, Lanzini and Ogbanna tried very hard with little support. Our best player was Arnie by far the best player on the pitch. The 4 players above have to be dropped before it is too late – bring in the kids. Moyes you are clueless..
Absolutely correct . Moyes is Bilic in disguise . Noble , Cresswell ,Hart , Carroll should never play for the club again . They are a disgrace . How can Moyes pick Noble ??? He is clueless .
On a Nought to Ten scale : Sh,,,t . We looked like a League One team or worse .
No defense , no Midfield , no attack . Absolute rubbish .
I’m going on holiday and ain’t watching no more . Just like inwas getting 100G a week to be useless . I’m 66yrs old and have earned my retirement . These sh,,heads are on megga Money . Fu,,em .
It takes more than 2 weeks of intense training to fix 2 years of pathetic training and no pre seasons.
Especially when half the squad are not there or injured.
That was poor but better than anything bilic served up in the last 18 months. A bit of fortune and we’d have equalised. The second was stupid by Reid and handball too.
We clearly couldn’t cope after the 60th minute tho. We were so shattered. There was no fight at the end at all. But I understand that. 2 weeks of intense training, and the first game. They were bound to get tired. Were going to have to wait a little longer for the ‘bounce’ of the better training.
Must give moyes 10 games to work and figure stuff out. Bilic seriously left us in the ****.
Agree completely Master the board know now they screwed up probably for the last season and a half when they didn’t make the marquee signings in the transfer windows and the players were getting away with murders, Bilic had been shown to be inept and bailed out by Payet for most of his best results, they should have got shot of him at the worst at the end of last season and now Moyes is inheriting a basketcase with more ability than previous, imo we should all give him 10 games, I am still looking forward to the Leicester game hopefully the players will be given some more double sessions this week because by god they need them, I hope he makes some statements against Leicester by dropping some of those big names he has called out.
Cannot believe some people are already laying into the new management team.As mentioned by Master its going to take some time.We still have injuries to key players and today was a bit of a cobbled together team,but at least Martinez and Quina got on the bench with Rice which is a positive.Fitness will improve but again takes time.Bilic really has left a big mess to sort out.
Didn’t want moyes in the first place but now starting to believe no manager could get anything out of these useless, past it, slow team. Absolute dire.
Hart needs to be dropped ,his distribution was shocking & everything was long ball most of which resulted in lost possession….we are a better team with Adrian in goal hence our better performances in cup games…
Zabaleta is too slow & when fit should be replaced by Byram
Missed Ayew ,Antonio & Chicharito…
worrying times…