Say what you like about Niclas Fullkrug’s season, the guy absolutely nailed it with his four – letter rant live on sky yesterday afternoon. No platitudes. No excuses. Just a frank assessment of the weaknesses in the side that cannot do what the manager wants. Exhibiting a passion usually lacking from the too-often orchestrated press sessions and ‘tame’ interviews, Fullkrug launched into an angry tirade, exhibiting along the way exactly how much he cared about the game, the shirt and the team.
Big respect, Niclas.
And it would be good if the rest of the team took a leaf out of Fullkrug’s book and admitted with brutal honesty where the team is coming up short.
Instead, from one of the lesser performers, who should be nicknamed ‘handbrake’ for all the times he slowed done West Ham’s attacks and stopped the team from rolling forward, James Ward Prowse came up with a much less emotional appraisal.
Reported in the dailyecho.co.uk, Ward Prowse claimed to be ’emotional’ about taking on his old club Southampton, where clearly his passion remains. As far as his West Ham performance, a more tepid admission was hardly winning over any disgruntled fans:
“This halts any momentum that we’re trying to build here. The performances haven’t been bad but we lacked tempo.”
The performances haven’t been bad? Really? The club is seventeenth and in relegation form. No wins in six.
How bad does it have to get before Ward-Prowse gets real and admits the terrible results this expensively assembled group of players has produced.
They’re all paid millions – Ward Prowse is on over £100k a week and for that kind of pay, the very least that paying spectators deserve is a bit of brutal honesty .
Acceptance is the first step toward change. And some still seem in denial.
JWP seems a decent guy and a good professional. Problem is he isn’t very good – he is slow and isn’t defensive or creative. He’s carried in the team for dead ball deliveries from which we never score. So that’s one down in the very poor slow midfield, very little comes from anyone else. Soucek at least tries hard but is nothing like what he was when he first came. Bad ball retention skills. Soler seems like a nothing, Alvarez might be OK with quicker players around him. Guilherme seems too lightweight. That’s where we need to be honest. Probably the worst premiership midfield with Kudus and Pacqueta the forwards out of form mostly for the season that we cannot drop because there’s noone else. We have Kilman, AWB, Bowen and maybe Tobido, Alvarez and Fullkrug – the rest are some kind of problem. It’s a proper disaster squad
Ward Prowse and Alvarez bought in to replace Rice. Worked well for a few months but their drop off in form together with that of Paqueta has left us with such a poor midfield. Add in the square pegs of Soler & Rodriguez and we have 5 high earners offering us virtually nothing. Unbelievably bad value. Got to try and shift as many as possible and start again in that area. Soucek and Irving at least honest players but hardly getting a look in. Potts, Earthy and some new blood is desparately needed
We should all give thanks to Fullkrug for his honest assessment of yesterday’s shambles. I have renewed my s/t in the hope that he stays next season. He is without doubt a proper centre forward with great awareness and touch. In my opinion the best we have had since Geoff Hurst. We should be begging him to stay and offering him the captaincy. Bowen will always be a legend but a leader he is not.
JWP is one of the main culprits for our slow, sideways and backwards football. He contributes absolutely nothing in open play. Doesn’t mark out of possession. Doesn’t track runners. Doesn’t play forward passes. An absolute waste of a shirt. Tomas Soucek may not be technically as good as JWP but at least he contributes in both boxes and scores goals
I didn’t see the game yesterday but watched JWP against Liverpool and virtually every time he got the ball he was facing the opposition goal (quite deep) weather he had a man on or not, within a few movements he had managed to do a 180 turn and either passed backwards or sideways it is infuriating and Potter sees him as vitally important.
The brutal TRUTH is that West Ham are, & have been, CRAP for the last 18 months. Regardless of manager ( 3 of them), & the fact that we have – at least on paper – 6 or more top class players, we cannot put in a convincing performance or win a reasonable number of games. There can only be 3 reasons for this: the players, the manager, & the owners. Between them, the attitude is obviously VERY wrong. What can we do ? Changing n
manager hasn’t worked ; buying players hasn’t worked; & the owners seem to be clueless as what to do. And, so am I. Any answers would be greatly appreciated. But, something has to be done !
Fullkrug said it in as many words, half the team did not follow the managers instructions, fell back too deep with the predictable outcome. Fullkrug was plainly angry.
I cannot excuse Potter completely as he did take off all of Kudus, Bowen and Fullkrug, what message does that give.
The Fullkrug version is the one that we need to hear because he addresses the shortcomings. We’re too slow in the buildup and too ready to drop back.
Add to that Fullkrug is putting in his shifts and more of his honesty needs to be heard.
Spuds o hara said fulkrug had a cheek critising his teammates that he was bad himself yesterday and that he had watched him a lot this season and he did nothing in games.now this clown is paid by sky so at least tell the truth. He couldn’t have seen him play a lot this season because he hasn’t been playing and he was probably west hams best player yesterday so he didn’t watch the .match C.O.Y.I.