For the fifty thousand plus supporters who attended last night’s win it was probably the most subdued atmosphere I have experienced all season. Apart from the applause for both the departed young fan Jack Howard and West Ham player/youth coach Peter Brabrook, the place was quiet for the majority of the match and any singing was very short lived.
Thousands of supporters were late for the kick off due to combination of a firearms incident at Liverpool St which shut the central line and emergency gas works in the Olympic park outside the London Stadium.
The on the pitch entertainment on a dark and cold December evening didn’t add to the somber mood and it remained a boring and nervous watch for most of the second half for most on an uninspiring evening.
Although Burnley fans didn’t take their full allocation of 3,000 away tickets and became the first visiting team to actually sit down in their seats, the 1,800 who made the journey down south sang loud and proud and put most of the home fans to shame.
I disagree with it being the worst of the season. I think the Stoke game was the worst by far. I also disagree with the atmosphere being poor. It’s really not that bad, I just think that because the stadium is so vast, in the moments of the game when it is quiet, it is VERY quiet, but when the crowd does sing, it sounds really good and reverberates around the bowl, creating lots of noise. I think this is all in our head. When you watch other games on tv, or go to other games away, its pretty similar (the Everton away atmosphere this season was quite frankly non-existent, I was VERY disappointed with the perceived good atmosphere at Goodison Park). The Chelsea game was the loudest i’ve heard us sing since the Ipswich play-off final, and the atmosphere was also rocking when we went 2 up against Watford. It’s all about perspective and the situation. Upton Park was never as amazing as everybody thinks in their minds.
It was fairly quiet but lets be honest the players with their negative and wayward passing, lack of pressure and nervous demeanour didn’t do very much to get us on the edge of our seats furthermore we were playing a team that could bore the life out of a Sloth. I have never seen one of our teams wasting time, delaying play etc as much as ours did and Burnley joined that party while it was 0 0. I thought on occaisions we did our best to lift the team with some singing the BML seemed quite noisy, the team have to give us at least something to feed on and they didn’t, I think the team takes it lead off its captain and manager, Slav was a lot more energetic than recently but Noble was slow, Carroll great in the air but I saw Payet countless times look like he wanted to release a pass early but Carroll was just ambling forward so he had to move sideways, likewise Cresswell kept getting forward making great runs and wasn’t picked out. by Noble or Lanzini. Lanzini actually avoided making tackles, he can do it when he wants too but last night he didn’t even attempt a single tackle or block or interception, thats not good enough when you are fighting for your lives. Lanzini is still young but a good captain would be telling him to get stuck in, unfortunately ours is not that man he can’t lead by example anymore because he is no longer quick enough to keep up with play and he just leaves a void in the middle of the pitch that opponents exploit. We should have signed Song and Slav should be looking for another Song like player to replace Noble in the team, unfortunately players of that quality are not usually available to teams like us but we can live in hope that we spend the money on top quality in January (Or more likely get lucky in the loan market).
Fairly quiet – yes. But although we hit the post through efforts from Noble and Obiang in between there was nothing to get excited about and the second half was dull to say the least. How many saves were forced? I cannot remember any of significance. I remember watching a goalless draw at the Boleyn on a Boxing day in the late 70’s and the ground was definitely not rocking.This is more to do with the performances than the ground.
Our ambition was summed up when Antonio and Payet forfeited a corner to waste 15 seconds in the corner. Served them right when the ref awarded 5 mins of injury time. Carroll changes the dynamics of the team from a Sakho or even Fletcher. He simply does not suit the Payet/ Lanzini double act, and if our wing backs are not getting forward to lob the ball in then he becomes obsolete. Kouyate tightens up the back three but we miss his drive in midfield.I would play Oxford in the back three as soon as he is fit and replace Noble with Kouyate. Up front I would give Fletcher a run until we get someone better or Sak returns. Just my opinions!
Sorry but why the articles this season about the atmosphere or lack of at the LS
I remember very few articles about the pindrop atmospheres at Upton Park on here..sometimes the place was almost deathly silent apart from a murmur but it didnt seem to warrant regular articles…
Subdued but no more so than UP at,say, home V Sunderland in march