ClaretandHugh
Match verdict
That was unacceptable – no ifs, no buts…simply not on!
However, within 10 mins of the game finishing there was a Twitter poll running asking if Slaven Bilic was the right manager, or whether we need a new boss. That too is equally unacceptable, indeed ridiculous.
Various things shocked me today but chiefly that Villa appeared to want it so much more than us. Running that a close second was the fact that we failed to control the ball al over the pitch or picked up second – or indeed sometimes – third balls.
It was very very poor but for the record Villa scored their equaliser from a very soft Ogbonna ‘foul’ and we should have had a couple ourselves notably at the end when Westwood clearly used his arm inside the box to stop a Hammers advance.
That is mentioned merely for the record and does not excuse the lightweight performance which we really should have gone on to win after Aaron Cresswell’s beautiful angled shot which gave us the lead in first half injury time.
Villa though cam out like men possessed in the second half and sadly we let them play all round us before equalising when Ogbonna – running behind Gestede was adjudged by ref Mike Dean to have brought him down. It was marginal at best! Ayew however, took the coolest of spot kicks lifting the ball high past Adrian.
However, we should have had one of our own in the 69th minute when Bacuna’s hands were up to push away a Noble piledriver which Dean presumably saw as ball to hand. Doubtful.
Seven minutes later James Collins headed off the line and right at the end Valencia saw a great free kick pushed around a post but it has to be said that Villa were guvnors for much too long.
There are two ways of vewing the current run of results. You can see it as all totally unacceptable and question the manager or you can be positive and view it as an unbeaten run of five games in a very difficult time.
Today simply wasn’t good enough against a team with a work ethic and not much else. Hopefully Manu Lanzini will be back on Monday and Dimi Payet for Liverpool.
That will make a difference but there’s also a worry that we are stuck into a defensive mode from which the players may find it hard to emerge.
We’re in ninth place with another winnable match to come on Monday – it needs to be won.
Blich can only advise and guide a team he is not on the field playing thats up to the players and they dont eem to be able to string two passes together or keep the ball at all at the moment. That is quite worrying because even when we get our creative players back they need decent players to work with and we seem to have fallen apart 🙁 Its the players that need a kick up the arse not the manager.
Lets not become like every other stupid fan base in the league and start mentioning the sack after a few average results when its clear that the team is still being coached right. Without payet, lanzini, sakho and moses we have no creative players in the team. you cant expect bilic to draw blood from a stone. What he is doing is right- hes focussing on what we have ie a relatively in tact defence and not being stupid playing open football when we have no creativity in the team. whhen one of the lanzini or payet are back we will create a huge amount more.
But thats the way Fatso played last year when we had injuries. If Fatty took the abuse – why can’t Bilic? Its all down to the manager who plays and some of our deadwood should be replaced by eager and good youngsters who are itching for a game.
Agee England’snumber6, I’m quite enjoying the season and staying positive, it’s not just Chelski but ManU fans who have gone into a state of meltdown, ManC fans are moaning and Arsenal are choking on their turkey sandwiches after losing to Southampton 4-0, Liverpool are hardly dancing in the streets are they?
Villa were the home side fighting for their lives what did we expect they would roll over?
We are unbeaten in 5 and don’t get beat even when half our team is injured, the post is daft and contradictory just to get the reactions you see above. We have had a great first half of a season we should be celebrating it could be a lot worse ask chelski fans. A solid performance v saints hopefully 3 points and then it’s the 2nd half of the season
I didn’t think it was possible for Noble to get any worse but .boy , did re manage it at villa . He is out of his depth …re can’t run , tackle , head , take free kicks and is too slow to even be a nuisance ! Everything goes backwards or at best sideways . He destroys all of our break away opportunities … HE IS AWFUL . Zaratte and Antonio were not much better
Thanks, Muckracker.
Yes, you’re right. Noble really isn’t on the same wave-length as Payet and Lanzini, is he? He hasn’t quite got the vision to see the next pass when the team breaks forward with speed.
Remember what Bilic said? Payet is not only a great player, he has this rare ability to make others around him play better.
oh my days look at some of the other clubs in the prem league there got injuries as well its part & parcel of the game would rather win yes but a draw with Villa’s first team ain’t bad if youse fans don’t like it go watch Sunderland with the dinosaur in Slav I trust COYI happy new year everyone
Cmon. We didn’t win , but we didn’t lose either. We lost half of our team to injuries, and as soon as Dimi, Sak, Manu, Kiwi and Moses will return we will start winning again.
Nice to see I am not the only West Ham fan who is sick to death of reading how we should recognise how many players we have injured and in turn be grateful for any points we pick up. The players we had on the pitch today should still have been far too strong for a Villa side who were bottom of the table with only 7pts yet we were 2nd in every department. Apart from the fantastic results against Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City, the season so far can only be described as average mediocrity. Losses to Bournemouth and Watford along with draws against Norwich, Sunderland, West Brom, Stoke, Swansea and now Villa are just not good enough.
LOL. We are not Real Madrid its EPL and craziest season i remember so far.
I WANT SUCCESS AND I WANT IT NOW!! WAWAWAWA!!
Not success – a bit of effort would be appreciated. You’re a bit dim if you can’t see that.
Hi all don’t mean to be a spoil sport but I think we have to accept that without pa yet lanzini and sakho all we have is a good championship side sorry to the rest but they can’t handle the pressure , where do we go from here god only knows but we need to stop the slide to retain any respect we have built from earlier so far this year. Happy new year all. An old hammer .
above post is meant to be a reply to spindoc
Agree with you that Antonio doesnt have what it takes to cut it in the PL. He runs about like a headless chicken, with no end product.
As for Noble, he kills any forward momentum we have by taking his time whenever he gets on the ball after which he inevitably passes it sideways or backwards. ln short, he stands in our way, and that is precisely what he did today.
l dont care how many accolades he gets. He is a liability and is the captain solely cause he is from Canning town not because he deserves it. His shortcomings are not so obvious when he is sorrounded by our better flair players, but are highlighted in their absence.
Here Here ! My biggest hope for West Ham is that within the next 2 years we have a midfield good enough that he doesnt get in the team. He has been a liability for years and any one with half a footballing brain can see that he is utterly talentless. Having said that he seems like a good lad in the dressing room but again utterly talentless
We were awful . Forget the penalties , they are part of football .
We were second to every ball and if it wasn’t for Collins we would have lost .
Obviously we are missing players , but that excuse is wearing very thin .
We should have been better than Villa , and we weren’t . In fact we looked like a relegation team .
but we didn’t lose, only two defeats in 15 games, only four all season and we’re playing with last seasons players apart from Antonio,
when was the last time we we so decimated players wise and remained so resilient?
You know the defensive unit is the only part of our first choice team intact and they are pulling us through right now, so to those players we owe a great deal of praise for.
Lest we forget, that was the Villains cup final, a must win game for them to stave off certain relegation, of course they were more up for it, just as we would have been in their shoes, hope remains that they perform well for the remainder of the season and stay up, as i would prefer to see Mackems, Mags and Baggies go down.
Another 2injurys to add to the the others tells me things are not going to get any better soon,
But the proof is in the pudding so they say ?
We will need to buy big again in the summer and release 3 or 4 players, our midfield is not anywhere near as competitive as it should be ! 3 players in particular have had their chance to impress since the injury to our midfield maistroes ! And have been found wanting !!
Noble ( legend ?not ! ) zarate and kouyate appear OK when the full team is on the park
Kouyate looks nackered and the other 2 are just not good enough !
We need to get this season out of the way and buy 2 mid fielders a winger and a centre forward, add to that a right back !
Its grin and bear it times until all the injured are back !
I don’t see carol and the Jewell making that much difference coming back as the Jewell can’t do it on his own ?
Southampton are a different ball game to swans and the villa !!
And we have just lost our two fullbacks !!
Roll on the new year and a change of fortune !! This side has been cursed ?
And mike dean is a cheat !!
Finally we are seeing some reality and truth, that many of us have been condemned out of hand for daring to utter.
The excuses that have been tossed out on these and other pages have been real ‘head in the sand’ stuff.
What they all add up to when looked at with heads out of the sand, is that without Payet, Lanzini and Zacho, we are a bottom end team.
One can only hope that in some way that is true because it seems we are not capable of turning in even a half decent performance without them
That’s exactly what we were before the two aforementioned players arrived, in fact we were in a terrible run of form, losing had become a habit previously under Allardyce.
Nowadays I look at our loss column in the table and say blimey ” where could we be with a first choice front four, a back up front two and our best centre half?
Even without Payet, Lanzini, Shako and Moses, one would expect West Ham to do a little better than this. The front line of Zarate, Valencia and Antonio looked completely toothless and incapable of breaking down the Aston Villa defence, despite the pace and skill those players are supposed to possess. To me, Antonio is a decidedly average player with little ability to get pass Premier League defenders, let alone scoring – that’s on the basis on watching him in the last few games. Valencia needs to play with another forward (preferably Shako) to be effective, or else he looks rather lost. Zarate showed rare glimpses of ball skill but is ultimately too wasteful in possession and lacked true vision; not to mention the fact that his corners and free kicks rarely got pass the first defender. Why did he keep taking them? Zarate has been given his chance this season but I don’t think he is the real deal. And Noble? I can’t recall what he did all game other than that blocked shot?
It was not good, but too many fans are going a little over the top! Just can’t believe how nothing seemed to go right, it was good to see Aaron Cresswell score as he seems to have lost all the confidence he used to have, and it was a superb goal. But we seem to have no strikers hungry at the moment, and you see someone like Kane scoring his 25th goal in 2015, we can only dream of figures like that sadly,