Hammers 0 Watford 2
Let it be said straight away this was a great game of football with two teams giving it a real go …the only thing which was all wrong was the result!
A Troy Deeney penalty after a Fabian Balbuena foul and a Deulofeu breakaway towards the end after a stupendous save by Foster and an Antonio header against the bar was the difference.
And whilst Watford carved out the two or three clearer chances, the Hammers saw Antonio and Chicharito denied. However, Fabianski was probably the hero with two or three great saves in a game as open as any we have seen at the stadium this season.
Antonio steered another header on to the inside of the upright from a Snodgrass corner and Chicharito failed to read a clever Anderson ball into the box in what otherwise would have been a great chance.
It all means that we slip to 12th place with Everton and Manchester United to play as I write. Disappointing but there was little wrong with the performance in general terms although Masuaku’s defensive patrol was again suspect.
Elsewhere Andy Carroll got some good minutes and Ogbonna was steady when called on to replace Balbuena whilst Diangana again showed his skills in a cameo performance near the end.
We move on disappointed but not disheartened to Southmampton, Burnly and the Brighton games from which we expect points and recovery from today’s setback.
Against a very physical side like Watford Carroll should have been in the starting line up .
You are not going to beat a team like Watford without a strong physical presence in the box at both ends . It was a strange performance with a little too much emphasis on attacking .
Reckon Pelligrini threw this one away by team selection and tactics chasing five out of five.
Lawrenson being proven right is a very hard pill to swallow ……. El Cabron . ,, sorry for the bit of Spanish there .
COYHAMMERS still a long way to go , but please stop talking yourselves up so much . Big clubs dont do it , so why should we as a smaller club ??
I also had a feeling it would end today, if only for the fact that we were going to play a far stronger team than we had played during the previous 4 games.
We have turned a corner but we now need to go up a gear to keep it going in the right direction.
That strong feeling , sleeps , is because you are a Hammers Fan . It’s part and parcel of who we are . We had four wins in a row against teams just a bit weaker than us . Not saying Watford are stronger but , they were really up for it and we fell for it . Not taking advantage of the Wolves loss to Liverpool is massive for a club like West Ham .
Terrible game today. We didn’t get the rub of the green granted but we were out muscled in every department and we always seem to lose to the physical teams that want it more than we do and know how to break up our play and basically stop us from playing free flowing football.
Had a strange feeling it was going to end today.Very wasteful in front of goal and something just missing all through the match.The long injury list really tells at this time of year when the matches come thick and fast.Man City and Chelsea have shown today how unpredictable football can be even when you are flying in the premiership.Need to get Arnie back and today proves we still need a quality finisher in the January transfer window.Test of character now at Southampton on Thursday.If this squad is the real deal they need to win it and prove this fine run was not another false dawn.Agree with Hammerskip.
Need a left back, a midfielder and another forward player and Nasri on loan. Noble is no longer a starter. We are carrying him at this stage. Hernandez and Carroll both not the answer up top. I would love to see Silva given a chance, he has pace to burn not like Hernandez and Carroll.
Nonsensical : with Wolves losing this was our Great chance to consolidate a margin in the top half of the table . As usual loads of talk got us nowhere ; and as usual only served to strengthen the reserve of the opposition . We threw away it away by talking ourselves up too much . Watford for sure were reading the forums and thought otherwise .
Attacking is all well and good but a failure of respect for Watford was suicide .
It was our chance to get closer to Europe and we wasted it …… time and time again too much talk only serves to gee up the opposite team . This was a failure on a epic scale .
The motivation to stop our run of wins was greater than ours to extend it . Very very disappointed . Even a draw would have been enough . A completely wasted opportunity .
we had a good run so losing today isn’t so bad ..not in my book if you want to win trophies you can’t think like that ..3 points dropped at home
Spot on , Hammerkip .