The Hammers have seen their first double defeat of the season and it’s against newly promoted Brentford – not a great scenario as we head into perhaps the biggest match of our season on Thursday evening.
And ClaretandHugh Facebook Group member Steve Paxman makes some valid points in his latest post – asking questions which need to be answered pretty promptly.He says: It’s so unfair to raise expectations then consistently fail to turn up for winnable games .
No Premier League game game is easy and you can’t win them all but aren’t we entitled to expect a level of professionalism and effort from these athletes ?
Is it mental fatigue , physical tiredness or a bit of both .
You cannot expect to compete at the highest level if you’re not switched on for 90 minutes.
Those players deserve to feel bad but the fans feel just as bad if not worse .
We all love this club and will support them whatever but its so frustrating to see this lack of consistency.
I’m sure Moyes gave them a rocket but will that change Cresswell’s regular ball watching and lack of awareness in defence , he’s a better wingback in my opinion .
Will that rocket change Antonio’s awful first touch , his stamina when he flags after 60 minutes or Benrahma’s inability to see the right pass at the right time far too often or not beat his man and then lose possession .
There are constants in this team like Rice , Dawson , Zouma and others that put in a shift every game without much fuss but we are lacking quality in areas we should have addressed at the start of the season and in January .
It’s still been a good season overall but we must improve if we want success in the league and Europe .
Perhaps the answer is simply that our players – who, over the last couple of years, have been genuinely competing far more regularly than most of the teams the club has been able to put out in the last 40 years – are slap bang in the middle of the two biggest games in their careers so far, and the biggest that the club have been involved in for over 40 years. The first of those games we played with 10 men for more than half of. If that is the answer, I’m left scratching my head wondering why the question was asked.
First things first Cresswell will have never make it as wing back. He!s never been blessed with speed so that in itself rules that out.
As pointed out many times Moyes is reluctant to use youngand his subs.Failing to use these apart from at the end of games.
The players and Moyes have done really well but not using more players proactively has caused this situation. No real competition for places thus when a player is off form or knackered we lose momentum. Spurs replaced their dead wood and look what’s happened.
To progress Moyes needs to more proactive.
Now our luck is running out at the wrong time. Diop will not an ideal replacement for Zouma.
We need Rice at 100% not is 90% of recent weeks. It was bound to happen sooner or later. He just needs to find that full energy he had before.
GLAD YOU SEEM TO AGREE WITH THE PIECE
BoleynIrons bang on. The contrast that Lyon made 7 changes plus subs at the weekend compounds it. Ok we have a small squad – but flogging the same 12 every 3-4 days cannot maintain top level performance. We have internationals like Yarmo, Vlasic, plus Diop and Kral, who could have started against Brentford. We have Alese, Perkins, Okaflex who could have subbed on and gained experience. Before you berate me for being naive, look at the score and performance using the tired ones
The buck stops with the Manager . On one hand Moyes says there is no one out there to strengthen the squad but he has brought in Kral . Vlasic and Benrama ,two of them don’t play and the other one isn’t performing well so perhaps it is Moyes who is not good enough ?
He has asked 12 players to run themselves into the ground and in some cases over perform
He put all of our hopes in the arms of one man who is injury prone and clearly not good enough and while it has been a fun journey it represents a total lack of ambition and a tremendous opportunity wasted . .