Manuel Pellegrini is sounding like a man whose frustration is boiling towards anger with the team’s performances away from home.
And it was not surprising to hear him speak out about this performance as he has so far in this topsy turvey season.
He had every right but there are more questions than answers following a game which after the last two performances we had every right to believe was there for the taking.
Yes, of course, teams in relegation trouble are always a tricky proposition and nobody should ever take a Neil Warnock team lightly but coming off the back of three defeats – conceding 10 goals along the way – this defeat is as hard to take as it gets.
And the Hammers boss knows he needs to get to the bottom of a problem which is all about attitude rather than ability. The team was simply brushed aside this afternoon and the boss was close to furious.
He said at his post match presser: “More than a disappointing result, it was a disappointing performance.
“We must review what we are doing when we are playing away because in four [of the last five] away games we didn’t score one goal and we conceded too many.
“We knew that today we would find a team that was in a difficult moment after three defeats in a row and fighting against relegation, but they didn’t have to do much to score two goals.
“For both goals, we were not concentrating and if we had, we could at least have played badly and drawn nil-nil. I think that was a very bad performance.
“We need to improve our away form. We need to see what we are doing wrong when we play away because it is impossible and unacceptable to play four away games and not score one goal.”
Pic via www.whufc.com
“We expected them to come at us from the first whistle and we talked about that before the game.
“We improved a little bit in the last 15 minutes of the first half, but we didn’t create chances. We had two in the second half with Declan hitting the post and Marko seeing a shot saved but this was not enough to win a game against a team fighting against relegation.
“Maybe if we had scored and made it 2-1 with 15 or 20 minutes to play they could have become nervous, but I think we must try to play better before that.”
maybe Pellegrini should look at himself,It seems every game we come out of the blocks slowly,We could have been 2-0 down against Fulham and 1-0 down against Newcastle.we never seem t #start well.-So up your game Pellegrni.-Not good enough.
Once they cross that white line there’s not much he can do.
no pace upfront build up too slow after the 2nd goal I switched the game off utter tripe as for Pellergrini it gets paid to manage & he brought in quite alot of this team which still looks like they don’t know each other away from home. Does any1 know why the team bus got to Cardiff with 3 minutes to spare for the team to be announced
It’s the players. Not the manager.
I think at times our defending, leaves a lot to be desired. The two goals were from defensive mistakes really, and poor marking, fredericks disappointed me for the first, not going with his man, and the second was a poor mistake and then not defending the cross. I think Arne needs to come in for Chica against Huddersfield. I think that despite the defending at times, which needs to be improved on the training pitch, the main priority is a couple of strikers for next season.
I agree @paulcolborne that Pelle must also look at himself – why do mediocre teams find it easy to run over us – while it is true that the Cardiff goals came from mistakes (and Anderson and Snoddy were nowhere to be seen supporting the fullbacks), Niasse could have had a hattrick and it could have been much worse
For me the worrying thing is that we are creating very few clear cut chances – at least when Antonio and Arnie are on the field I feel that they are trying to do that – so that is Pelle’s challenge – to get us to create more and attack with more pace