West Ham’s season-long problem of individual mistakes being punished was demonstrated in all its ugliness against Chelsea last night.
And Slaven Bilic made a point of drawing big attention to it after the match without naming culprit and skipper Mark Noble.
It was his poor pass deep in Chelsea’s half which saw the league leaders counter attack at pace to score the first goal and afterwards the manager said: ” To make such a mistake that led to their first goal when we had our centre-backs in their box – we should have put the ball back in the box .
“Their second goal was also a cheap one from our side. So basically, it’s very simple. If you want to beat Chelsea, then you can’t make those kind of mistakes. You have very little chance if you do.
“The first was a set piece for us and we had enough players back. We had a chance to put in the second ball in a good position but we didn’t, Mark wanted to play with the best intentions, but you expect your players to run back with more reason in this situation.
“Chelsea players are all in and around the box as well but they got the ball in space where we can’t afford to give it, especially against them because their pace in the transition is scary.”
The Blues’ victory meant Chelsea moved ten points clear at the top of the league table and the West Ham boss admitted Conte’s are an incredibly impressive outfit.
“They have everything,” the Croatian continued. “They are really good. From all the top teams, they are very solid and they defend all the time with numbers.”
a terrible mistake by Noble to give away the 1st goal. As the number one Noble supporter on this site, I will say he was everywhere in this game with a 94% pass completion rate, but one bad mistake like that undoes it all.
It won’t surprise me to see him ” rested ” for the next game, with Kouyate waiting in the wings, and Byram should be able to cope with the next three games ( hopefully ).
That’s what the squad is for, and we have a good one.
Noble wont be dropped and the same sychophantic fans will turn a blind eye to his faults.The same ones who saw no faults in Nolan until six months down the line when they finally admitted he was shot away.Blind loyalty above and beyond the realism of the situation.We have another Nolan as captain and some fans are in total denial because he is from Canning not Cannes or Cologne.
Just what I was thinking; your denial is because he is from Canning not Cannes or Cologne.
As the great david gold would say. ‘ Go have a lie down.’
I’ve always been a supporter of Nobles over the years but I think it is obvious now that based on this season his performances really haven’t been good enough. Think we certainly lose a lot of dynamism and drive with him playing and Cheik at RB. Don’t think he should be dropped permanently but maybe against the top 6 we may need to think.
Despite the negatives thought overall we were pretty good against Chelsea was certainly worried a Man city esque score would be on the cards just think we were lacking someone to support AC up top
Quite agree about the game. We did well against this seasons stand-out team. Agree about Noble too, except that what we lose in attacking dynamism, when he plays we gain in the holding possesion stakes. In the games he doesn’t play in things become more hectic and unstable in front of our defence. It’s swings and round-abouts, but it’s good to show that our squad is used to keep up performances, whenever possible.