With the oldest squad in the Premier League, critics have slammed West Ham for being too immobile, too slow and uncompetitive. Whilst Saturday’s result was about tactics first and personnel second, it is true that many of the recruits to London Stadium this summer have been in their thirties whilst some of the ‘old guard’ near 35.
However, throughout the tactical chaos and the unforgiving nature of the Nottingham Forest game today with the home side driving though onto West Ham’s goal frequently towards the end of the game, there was the oldest player on the pitch, of course a Hammer, still doing his thing and performing pretty well under pressure.
At 39 years old.
Rolling back the years – Lucas Fabianski
Despite letting three goals past him, Lucas Fabianski performed admirably between the posts. Two saves in particular towards the end of the 90 minutes were absolutely top – drawer as the Polish stopper rolled back the years and saved West Ham from suffering a catastrophic four or even five-nil loss.
Considering ‘youngster’ Alphonse Areola – just 31- suffered a recurrence of his back injury that kept him out of the starting line up, Fabianski’s top form is something of a relief.
He gave a frank assessment of the Forest defeat to whufc.com: “It was a really tough afternoon. I think at the start of the game, in general we were in control and there weren’t many chances for either team, but after they scored we crumbled to some extent.”
“It’s just an example of us not managing the game in the right way, and I think we’ve seen that on other occasions this season as well. It’s really disappointing, because we knew coming here that it was going to be a tough match and we weren’t able to keep that control.”
With only Wes Foderingham (the least successful PL goal keeper last year) behind him, ‘Super Fab’ is still vital to the club even after 6 years as a Hammer.
Our biggest wish has got to be that JL leaves and Sully & Brady follow him very soon!
Nothing will ever change until the toxic trio depart.
JL is a disgrace! Sully is even worse!
Couldn’t agree more.
Thanks to fab it was only 3-0 otherwise it could have been 4/5/6-0 we have some top class players they don’t become bad overnight this situation we find ourselves in is totally down to a incompetent manager and a board that won’t for god knows why are afraid to act any other club would kick him out asap and that is what we should do we are the but of every joke right now we couldn’t beat a school boy team without being helped out by the referee just as we saw against Man Utd as usual Sullivan will spout the same old rubbish that the board are backing JL as far as I can see if the board does not do what needs to be done then I have no doubt that we will be relegated and then it’s going to be very difficult to get back up
Just demonstrates what a complete and utter mess our club is in from very top to bottom.
Did we learn nothing from the Pellegrini years thinking throwing money at foreign players know knew much about under a confused and clueless manager would achieve anything.
There are no excuses left when you look at likes of Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth.
I was annoyed by all the “careful what you wish for” comments in the summer but let’s admit it, we’ve egg on our faces now.
I said I’d give J-Lo until November before judging, and he has to go. There’s no excuses left. We’ve been awful all season…beat two struggling sides and flukes a result last week. There’s no signs of anything remotely positive under him.
Be careful what you wish for?
No one wished for Lopetegui. So no we haven’t got egg on our faces. Met Sullivan’s criteria of being cheap and ‘experienced’ though…
Exactly Alan, nobody wanted JL apart from the Circus Master in chief!
Birmingham fans couldn’t stand Sully & Brady and for good reason.
They need to sell up and let us progress as a club. We constantly appoint managers that no other club want. West Ham fans then always take the blame for being unreasonable and having unrealistic demands.
We are a banter club with an owner and manager that are a joke!
What was he doing for their second goal?
Mavropanos headed it over his hands.