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Poor performance but Irons up to 13th

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Match verdict

Hammers 1 Hull City 0

We were second best all afternoon with Hull hitting the woodwork three times.

And it took the softest penalty award in the world for us to win a match where again our nerves were all but in tatters

Who cares? At the end of it all we had moved up to 13th after Noble made no mistake from the spot to leave the Irons on 19 points before Christmas.

Now hopefully we can travel to Swansea – beaten today 3-0 at Middlesbrough – with the confidence surge which manager Slaven Bilic claims we will inherit as we climb the table.

All that really matters is winning and as we approach the comfort zone I’m sure Slaven is right and the silky skills we saw from last season will slowly return.

With most of our better performances coming away  Swansea should hold no fears whatsoever nor Leicester City afterwards .

Today however we struggled in a big big way and those awful defensive mistakes we keep on making were again on show from Aaron Cresswell whose sloppy defensive play should have given Hull one and possibly two goals.

Noble was off the pace and there were too many misdirected passes and lost possessions to count.

But as the old saying goes: If you can play badly and win, you have a decent team on your hands and trust me at times we  were very very bad!

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

12 comments

  • newtown says:

    Absolute rubbish , no intensity , players all over the place , aside from Randolph , does anyone else know where they are supposed to be playing !
    I was happy when Bilic was appointed, but it has been dire since April , he is a very lucky man who imo should be gone based on today’s display , result excluded .

  • sleepswithdafishes says:

    2 wins 6 points and at the moment nothing else matters.
    Mind you I’m lucky I can’t get to games any more. after what I saw today on the internet.
    I can only imagine Billic will stick with Ayew and Fernandes next week, considering they lifted our game somewhat in the 2nd half.
    I’m sure the next 2 games will show better performances; it can’t be worse.

  • Wembley1980 says:

    I didn’t pay £800 just so I can quote how many points we get and how that affects the table! This is some of the worst football I’ve seen in 40 years! no movement no imagination utter rubbish relying on dodgy pens to beat bottom sides at home.

    • Thiucgshaun says:

      you obviously didnt watch us under curbs, Roeder, grant, Zola, macari or Allardyce Then if this is the worst you’ve seen in 40 years. We’re not playing well at all but today points were what mattered. If you don’t want to pay, don’t go.

    • Stratford E20 says:

      I totally agree with you. I have seen us play badly under many managers but I’ve never seen us play this badly and I’m actually bored during games. The non movement of our players is disgusting.

  • Michael Miller says:

    A truly dire performance and incredibly lucky not to go 2 goals down – it put me in mind of the bad old days under BFS – no style of play, no discernible tactics, just a complete mess.

    I didn’t have much of a view of the Penalty incident but the Ref seemed quite adamant and there wasn’t much complaint from Hull – that’s two games with lucky penalties that will probably save Bilic’s job.

  • Thiucgshaun says:

    We won. Up to 13th and 2 points off 10th. Confidence comes from points. If you want to watch chance after chance and good football, go support Hull. I’m sure they are delighted at losing again and being bottom of the table. I’m glad we’re going away for they next two games so I won’t have to hear the constant negativity and booing every 5 mins.

  • Richie says:

    Two wins on the bounce but I don’t feel any more positive. I thought the idea of these two home games was get to the players confidence up and get the fans on side. The board need to consider their options. We aren’t good enough at the moment. Swansea have been shocking last few games. If we go there and make them look like world beaters it is time for a change.

    What formation are we trying to play? what is our strategy in these games? We don’t seem to have a plan when we go into a game.

  • kevin says:

    Another lucky win . Ok , it’s great for our points tally but , honestly that kind of performance belongs right down there with terrible .
    This Stadium only makes us defend against teams that think they are in a Cup final .
    Every home game is like defending the cup we never won .
    We have ridden our luck and come out on top , for the time being . I remember the past Manager getting dogs abuse ; the present one doesn’t get the same treatment ,, strange .

  • winchester hammer says:

    Absolutely shocking. It’s hard to know where to start. No urgency or intensity. I know it’s sacrilege to criticise Antonio. And without his goals this season where would we be? But apart from one run and his excellent dive for the penalty he was woeful. His passing is appalling and he ambles around sticking his chest out doing little else. Like Adrian he needs to be told he isn’t undroppable.

    The defence is a joke.

    They have Carroll back but instead of going back to basics to build confidence and just keep sending crosses into him with Ayew close enough to pick up knock downs, theyre playing him far too deep, almost in a midfield role.

    This is tactical and is therefore down to Bilic. Unfortunately, he has now saved his job as, if they drop back into the relegation fight, it will be too late to bring anyone else in.

    Be in no doubt. This is bad. Very bad. Dont be fooled by climbing to 13th. Isn’t ths called a false positive?

  • hammers64 says:

    Ugly,Ugly win and plenty of luck for a change.I too hope that climbing to mid table will help the team start to play like last season but the fear of losing at home in this new stadium is strangling the players that did so well last season.Hope Slav shakes it up and brings in some much needed firepower in January and we kick on as that’s 7 points from a possible 9 and two away games to come with the shackles removed.

  • Hammer64 says:

    Sorry to disagree Hugh, but that statement is used for the occasional game playing badly but scraping a win. Even then, I don’t think it applies when you play THAT badly twice in four days. Dismal dismal. Remember us beating Hull two years ago 1-0. General opinion then was that this was Allardyce’s final straw even though it probably kept us up. OK, no hand to the ear this time but nothing else to celebrate….

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