Almost everyone who had an opinion seemed to note that West Ham’s performance against Bournemouth was improved. Although the game was open with 40 plus chances – a record for the Premier League – West Ham more than held their own with chances on both sides into double figures. Both team hit the woodwork. But for the last ditch free kick, the Hammers could have stolen all three points. Possibly the relief at avoiding an avalanche of goals was enough to inspire Hammers fans to be over zealous in their praise.
It’s a matter of opinion whether Lopetegui’s proponents think this was a ‘good draw’ or detractors from the head coach feel it was ‘VAR inspired lucky point’ – both views have been expressed freely in Claret and Hugh’s comments.
Thierry Henry hit the nail on the head on skysports.com: “They showed me something that I didn’t see for a little while at West Ham, especially this season. “They showed me that they could play and at one point they had to be resilient, away from home, against a team that at times is going to push them, they did.”
Max Kilman alluded to the same on whufc.com :”We’ve made a lot of improvements. We were very aggressive, fighting for the second balls, and we’ve put in a proper shift out there.” Whether this is another false dawn or whether the tide is slowly turning towards beleaguered Lopetegui the games against Brighton on Saturday and Southampton on Boxing Day may well show. Four points from these two games is now not an unrealistic expectation.
Resilience. Aggression. Magic ingredients for team success.
Finally, sporadically, like a big v6 engine sputtering into life after months in a damp shed, Lopetegui’s West Ham suddenly sparked up and ran without a misfire.
A winning dressing room suddenly becomes a happy dressing room. Many of the behind-the-scenes issues will melt away with success.
Win lose or draw, if Lopetegui can instil resilience into the squad, then the five goal thrashings are likely to be a distant memory. “The sliding doors” moment has arrived. Between now and the FA Cup match against Aston Villa the squad have to maintain the level shown against Bournemouth. And West Ham could only then start to feel they are on the way back.
This is what makes me angry.. they are talking about working hard and fighting for the second ball ….THAT SHOULD BE A GIVEN EVERY SINGLE GAME ….playing well every game is out of there control, teams have bad dsys ….but work rate nd desire are things they can control, so when you get paid 100k a week that shouldn’t even be needed to be talked about , that should happen naturally every game….if fans see players running themselves in to the ground every game, then there wouldn’t be half as much sniping …its a privileged job , so that’s the very least they can do , fans love work rate and getting stuck in ( well as much as you can in today’s football) when they see any player box to box like rice used to ..it lifts the whole stadium…just through simple hard work
Performance was better, nowhere near the level to be a top 6 side, if we keep improving then let’s see but we haven’t been able to string performances together and that is down to the coaching.
It’s horrible what has happened for Julen losing his father, the kindest thing to him at this time is to release him from his contract and let him go and grieve properly without the pressure of constant criticism whether or not he feels different to that.
Whatever decision the board make they will be criticised for but he is not going to be in a balanced place emotionally and that is going to affect everyone so a tough decision needs to be made.
Overall, Bournemouth proposed more of a threat , due to defenders surging forward, a threat missing from one player in particular Alvarez. Every time when he had the chance to go forward , he chose to go backwards and pass back, particularly in the first half.
The performance against Bournemouth was better but it was obvious how more clinical finishing could have buried us. I’m not getting carried away by it there was still the potential for a hefty defeat there.
Equally, with “more clinical finishing” on our side we could have run out easy winners. When it comes to football the ‘what, if & maybe’ discussions are usually pretty pointless.
The bottom line is that we put up a good performance and came away from a difficult venue with a point – something that Villa and Newcastle could only match and Man City, Spurs and Arsenal all failed to match!
You make a valid point about other clubs and how they’ve got on against Bournemouth.
Getting a point there was a good result and much needed.
Really hope Oli Scarles starts at LB against Brighton with Emerson suspended. AWB is a much bigger threat on the right.
We got another fortunate penalty. It wasn’t hard to improve on our previous performances and Bournemouth were not at their best.
Narrowly beating Wolves who look doomed and not losing away at Bournemouth only look like positives because the season has been so bad.
Let’s see how we get on against Brighton before we even start talking about a turnaround.
Bournemouth not at there best…maybe we had a little something to do with that…and before you go yeah but they would of buried us if they had finished there chances well same could be said for us at Leicester…..that’s football
Totally agree Pat. When the 38 games are complete the table will tell us whether it’s been a season of achievement or not.
A genuinely good performance is one where the opposition get few opportunities to score from, not one where they get ample opportunity but do not capitalise.
The first is you controlling the game so is a good performance, the second is them not making most which they might do at other times.
Bournemouth was a good result not a good performance as it did rely on them missing chances.
I’m a long long way from being convinced that anything like the best is being got from the quality of the players.
John, isn’t that the ‘West Ham Way’ that so many were crying out for last season and the lack of that ultimately resulted in David Moyes getting jettisoned?
Over the last 3 matches, two of which were away from home, we clocked up something like 66 shots. Yes, the opposition have had chances but so have we and the matches have been better spectacles than much of last season’s dross.
The system does still need tweaking to cut down on the shots/chances offered up but in general I think we are improving and I am all for the more cavalier approach.