West Ham coach Billy McKinlay has claimed that despite the defeat in Germany this afternoon, West Ham will be ready for the first game of the new season at Bournemouth next weekend,
Having been beaten 4-0, McKinlay made it clear there were things to be worked on and that the squad would be addressing them on the training ground this weekend.
He accepted that we had hardly been at our best and that the slow start could have been put down to the fact that the lads had been up at 5 am as the plane they had been due to travel on yesterday was cancelled and the early start may well therefore have had an effect.
And let’s make no mistake Bayern Leverkusen are a very good team and this was always going to be a real test ahead of the season
However, although that was unfortunate. McKinlay refused to use it as an excuse saying: “There’s nothing we could do about it – circumstances out of our control.
It maybe played a part in the start of the game, which we didn’t recover from, but we’ve got plenty of other things to work on as well.
It was good to get Micky Antonio and Ben Johnson out on the pitch for their first minutes today.
They’ve had a week’s training and didn’t miss too much [since their tournaments ended].
Paquetá got another 45 minutes too – we took him off at half-time as he took a little knock and it’s not the time to take chances with anybody.
We think he’ll be fine and ready to train on Monday.
It’s good to get them back and we’ve now got a good week to get ourselves prepared for Bournemouth. Plenty to do, but we’ll be ready.
There have been some good things in pre-season and obviously today showed up some things we need to improve on a little bit.
We’ve had some good results in pre-season but It has been mixed. It’s difficult with the players coming back sporadically at different times, but that’s part of it.
Plenty of work to do and we won’t become too down in terms of the result today. We’ll get ourselves ready for next week.!”
After the shocking performances yesterday and against Rennes the players look like they’re ready for lolling about on the beach at Bournemouth, not playing a Premiership match. This is the same type of performance we have seen for the last season and a half, interspersed with a cup run against Championship-level (or worse) teams – with the exception of the semi and the final, and who can say we dominated those matches, either? I’m glad we won the cup but more of the same but without Rice will not cut it. My thoughts on the players we saw yesterday:
Fabianski / Areola – both OK but will have plenty of shot-stopping practise in future
Coufal – I like him. Wants to defend, tenacious, fighting spirit
Zouma – likes a header and tries hard but slow, never looks fit
Ogbonna – great player but the years have caught up with him
Kehrer – not commanding as a central defender and error-prone. Just No.
Aguerd – ok, quick enough
Emerson – wing-back OK, full-back – just No. Doesn’t bust a gut to get back.
Johnson – Champoinship
Soucek – anonymous. Not forward-thinking or dynamic enough.
Downes – Championship
Fornals – was he on the pitch? Not as good as some seem to think.
Paqueta – looked very frustrated
Bowen – hardly got a touch
Benrahma – he’s no Payet, is he? A bit slow and loses possession too much
Mubama – ran around a lot chasing shadows
Antonio – ran around but he’s lost some pace and dynamism. Heart not in it?
Cornet – still waiting for him to be the player he could be
If I’ve forgotten anyone, it’s because they were even more anonymous than those above.
TIME TO FRESHEN THINGS UP because that wasn’t good enough for West Ham. Everyone has their sell-by date. So disappointing and the season hasn’t even started. COYI.
I just want to add – I think most of the players are good enough for our squad as a Premiership team. But they lacked dynamism yesterday and didn’t look excited to be wearing the claret & blue. We need some skillful, quick and young signings asap to reinvigorate the squad and not spend a fortune on Maguire (please no!!), McTominay and W-P. I think the squad would respond positively to a new forward-thinking manager and we need it now, not in 4 months time. Someone else said judge Moyes at the end of the season. Well I’m judging it now after the end of a desperate last season and more of the same in pre-season.
Well if nothing else, the post loss excuses are in mid-season form. Trotted this line out a lot last season. Think it’ll get a good run out this season too. Glad to see it get a few pre-season minutes under its belt.
Was a horrendous performance with a team that played without intensity or creativity against a team that were hungrier and more creative. All the signs of a Moyes team, starting slowly and unfocused, unlike normal we didn’t wake up or respond to going down by a goal. It was hard to pick any positives from this performance or even preseason. The only possible upside is that it shouldn’t come as a shock that we are under par going into the season so maybe the level will increase dramatically when we get started.
Funny how at the beginning of pre season, when we had the likes of Potts and Chesters in the team, we looked dynamic, exciting and hungry. Then our ‘pros’ came back and it’s back to the same lethargic drudgery as last year. Go figure…
But hey, let’s not use the kids and inject some energy and passion – let’s just press on with the same old setup and pray that something changes. Dear me.