The game may not be quite up but Sam Allardyce knows that he needs a couple of massive results and fine end of season run to take into the summer review board meeting.
That may yet give him a Hammers lifeline as speculation continues to swirl around his future.
A stunning victory over Chelsea on Wednesday evening followed by a result of some kind against Arsenal will set the team up for a series of games which look less daunting than in previous run-ins.
Yesterday’s shocker gives little mental recovery time for a team shattered by conceding three times from set pieces and Allardyce knows he and the team are facing a “massive ask.”
Having built expectation he commented after the game he doesn’t believe “we have lived with the expectation.”
Accepting the Palace game was “more winnable” than those immediately before and after the Palace debacle he said: “Now, we face Chelsea and Arsenal and it’s been a while since we’ve won. These are massive asks for us to gain victories from, but we will certainly try.”
The upside of course us that all our best performances have come against the top teams and we thus live in more than hope – or we should.
Hopefully, Stewart Downing will be back to his best should he be played at the tip of the diamond assuming of course the manager plays that formation for that appeared a real problem against Palace.
And defensively – given we were utterly shambolic – it’s to be hoped the squad is in for extra training on this Sunday morning!
It’s not the formation it’s the instructions to keep hitting long balls,we need to play the ball out of defence which means more movement,BFS yesterday told both fullbacks to sit on the wingers which ment no out let,yes I know that both of the wingers had speed to spare but that left only Murray for Reid and Tomkins so there had to be a out let,Cresswell pushed more forward making Saha less of a fret after 20 mins,
But BFS been able to see this with his vision but no he sat chewing and not a care in the world, I want us to win and play entertaining football but if loosing is the only way to get rid of BFS then so be it lets loose.
I think (and hope) that nothing can save BFS. Even if he should win few matches, he will never be the right person for West Ham’s next step. I’m sure about it; he’s not a winner and never he’ll be, so his departure is absolutely necessary. The owners in this moment have to be forward-looking and they should not base their future choices on a victory. They have to be brave and rational.
Personal opinion.
we need a quality manager sam needs to go hes a championship manager at best god help us if they renew his contract
I came to the conclusion yesterday that it’s more than the manager that’s the problem, I think most of us would have put that team out, we don’t have the squad to back up players like Song or Downing who looked drained and tired and at the moment we don’t have the finances to do much about it, that I believe will change once we move. Whether we like it or not we have a manager that matches the squad. Our club has peaked with what we have at our disposal, new and better players won’t transform our performances much as our manager is tactically limited and with the players we have, a world class manager would struggle rotating the squad, but it’s not all doom and gloom, the David’s will get it right, it’s been a slow progress since we nearly went up the wall but it is progress