Thought we were astute, defensively solid..As the cliche goes, you can only play the team in front of you and I thought we played Brighton well - not pretty but well. For all their posession they could muster only one shot that caused us anything like trouble.
Not a Premier performance true, but then we ain't in the Prem, are we? COYI!!!
The things that stand out for me from watching us this season, but especially the last two Premier games ever at Upton Park are as follows:
1. The West Ham fans who turn up week after week deserves far better. 2. We are at our lowest ebb ever. There is no obvious plan, no investment on the horizon just words. 3 With our so called star players we look like an average Championship side. Without we're looking at back to back relegation. Was there anyone in the ground today who could see that side scoring or keeping a clean sheet? 4. Whoever comes in as manager needs to be tough, a fighter with the patience to listen to and then ignore the nonsense coming from the board room with either international defensive experience or the ability to choose a DECENT defensive coach. 5.The Olympic stadium is going to look awfully empty come August 2014.
Black day indeed.
The blame for our relegation lies with G&S.
They bought in Grant, they - eventually - decided he should stay all season. Grant should have gone months ago. So many games with West Ham and Pompey, so many defeats. The guy doesn't know how to win, to motivate - and look at the consequences.
Roy Hodgson has clearly demonstrated with WBA what a motivational manager operating within his depth can achieve.
If we could see it why couldn't the owners?
And are our chances of being booted out of the Olympic stadium increased as a result of our relegation and their public rantings?
What are those clowns G&S doing to our club?
Said it before, say it again: Gold and Sullivan are bringing the club to its knees. This is the worst period in West Ham's history in my opinion and certainly in my memory, which goes back to the 64 cup final. To make matters worse, I've looked at our games left - 15 - and see that in the same fixtures last season we picked up just 10 points from 13 games. Our other two are against Blackpool and the Baggies. If we repeated that and won the two other games we'd have 36 points, not enough, I believe, to avoid the drop. But win two others...
The arguments between the Zola/Grant factions above are a waste of broadband space. The fact is we are a less than average side both now under Grant and before under Zola. But is there anyone who agrees that the lowest common denominator is G&S? In terms of academic questions, would we have been better under Tony Fernandes that G&S?
On the performance today we (still) need an Ian Wright up front, plus a Bonzo and SIr Trev in midfield with an Alvin and Ray Stewart at the back... but what player of any real quality, or more importantly with the ability to transform our season, is going to make the trip to East London? Where/who is the Tevez? Is it Joe Cole, as some are suggesting? Would it be better to replace Grant? Plenty here want him out, but replace with whom? Allardyce? Slim pickings I think. I reckon we need to average at least a point a game for the rest of the season to stay up. Anyone here think this team's capable of that? For what it's worth, I think with the right man at the helm (forget G&S for the moment) we can do it - where's Martin O'Neill?
Been away from the site 'cos I've been so disappointed with the West Ham regime and so I felt any comment would be pointless. But I can't keep quiet about recent results and performances, from the pitch upward. Apologies if this has been said many times before - but G&S are killing the club. Historians may well look back at the 60s and say they were our finest days but they will look at 2009 on as the years the club went under if not financially, then certainly in footballing terms.G&S are making a priority of getting a stadium that will hang around our necks like a millstone. They have a guy in charge who shows little evidence of strategic or tactical nous and is as charismatic as my kids' dead cat and they have assembled a squad of relegation merchants with no spine or fight, one or two notable exceptions apart. All this and still they appear on TV spouting rubbish, seeking glory, signing autographs, being threatened by fellow Prem directors. I've supported West Ham all my life - watched them since 64. Always supported them, always will - but these are dark days indeed.
April is the cruellest month...
Given that quality seasoned managers like Moyes or O'Neill are out of our reach Grant has to be the best premier-proven guy around - working on the assumption Hughes wasn't interested. I'm hoping he's been brought in to achieve progress and not maintain the status quo. In other words he needs money to build a decent team rather than be given the remit to get rid of our more valuable players and replace them with Quashie-type players. This coming season will be a real test of G&S's true ambitions for the club. They have to be less PR driven (surely Henry, Beckham etc is all bollix) and more honest - where do they see the club in five years time and where's the money going to come from?
We've become the Premier League equivalent of the transport secretary in government - usually attracting someone on the way down.
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Medley