Hughie hands out his marks
Fabianski: Excellent afternoon included several fine save which tells us more than we need to know 8
Coufal: Coming back to the player we knew – good front and back 7
Johnson: Ball bounced off his knee for the goal and looked uncomfortable in unfamiliar position 5
Cresswell: No complaints – similar comments as those awarded to Coufal 7
Rice: Fortunate to not get booked early, yellow carded later and missed a pen Cress or Benny would have been better off taking, Certainly not his best game for us by any means 5
Soucek: On the end of two or three goal opportunities but just not his day – looked better in a more attacking role 6
Benrahma: Best player on the pitch in claret and blue. Always providing a left wing threat and unlucky not to score – seeing one shot well saved, another hitting the woodwork and one ruled out after a foul earlier by Antonio 9.
Fornals: Anonymous early, grew into it with one two decent passes before hitting the woodwork 5
Bowen: Just an average game. Plenty of hard running but little impact 5
Antonio: Silly foul which saw Benny’s goal ruled out and off the pace most of the time 4
Subs
Scamacca: Arrived late and saw little of the ball
Cornet : Ditto above
Pretty much spot on for me Hughie. Johnson looked uncomfortable – not really a c/ B. Dec had a poor game for him, fouling early on, not intercepting as normal – he is too keen to get forward now, and please appoint a pen taker. Benrahma – easily our best player today. Forlans and Bowen not quite there. Why bring on Cornet to play right wing? Don’t start this out of position stuff with him please!!! Antonio loads of muscle but no guile for me.
Sorry but Coufal wasn’t at the races. Crossing is woeful and when he gets a shooting opportunity we all just know it’s going to be fluffed
Completely agree. No idea why you think Coufal had a good game. Awful end product every time.
I largely agree with this analysis.
I know we’re only two games in, but it really doesn’t look good if you look at it as a continuation of the way we fell away at the end of last season.
What should have been a well planned summer recruitment campaign, doing business early, giving new players the chance to bed in and being familiar with their roles, has already turned into the panic buying that characterises every West Ham summer transfer farce. Newman has to go.
By the time more new players get bedded in to the team and style of play, we could be five or six games in and in the bottom three. Then confidence starts to sag and it’s an uphill struggle to reverse the trend and lift confidence. And don’t forget, the worse our early league position, the harder it will be to attract really good players.
And Moyes’s poor man management has meant we have a defensive crisis that led, for example to Johnson’s performance today.
What do I mean? I’m talking about Issa Diop. After clearly being told, so we understand, that he was the fifth choice central defender, he wanted I get the hell out of there and who could blame him.
It’s woeful management.
Moyes or the board have to take the blame we had a wafer thin squad last season and by this game we were TWO players down from last season it’s a shambles . Needing a goal dithering Dave takes off Antonio for Scamacca why not go 2 up top . if it’s not the boards fault then moyes needs to go we need players now I’m sick of it