Please click HERE to rate the performances of the West Ham players against Chelsea. Only take part if you saw the game live or on TV.

Please use this thread to comment on the match as it progresses.

UPDATE: The team selection is about as strange as you could have imagined:

Green
Spector Upson Gabbidon Daprella
Ilan Parker Kovac Behrami Dyer
Mido

But the bench isn’t bad!

Stech, Cole, McCarthy, Tomkins, Collison, Diamanti and Stanislas

Gianfranco Zola has a big decision to make today. Does he change our formation to 4-5-1 to counter the effect of Chelsea’s powerful midfield, or does he stick with 4-4-2 and hope for more chances of unsettling Chelsea’s stand in rookie keeper Ross Turner? Normally, I’d want Zola to go for it, but in this case I’d go 4-5-1 and instruct Diamanti to get forward as much as possible and shoot on sight.

Another big decision is what to about the defence. There have been calls from many people on this site to drop James Tomkins after a couple of shaky performances. I totally disagree. Tomkins is a class act and will come good again. Dropping him now could affect his confidence. In any case, Da Costa is suspended and Danny Gabbidon has only played an hour in a reserve game. If Gabbidon plays, it could be at right back as Faubert us struggling to recover from the muscle injury he suffered against Bolton. Alternatively Behrami could play there, or Daprela could come in at left back with Spector switching to the right.

So basically, predicting this afternoon’s team is a mug’s game. But here goes anyway!

Green
Upson
Tomkins
Daprela
Spector
Behrami
Dyer
Kovac
Diamanti
Parker
Cole

If we can get a point out of this game, we will all be highly delighted. I’m gutted as I was offered two free tickets in an Executive Box for the game a couple of days ago, but I couldn’t take them. Bugger!

It has been announced that Ludo is to leave his position as the club’s goal keeping coach.  The reasons cited are ill health.  In honour of Ludo, I would like to use this blog post to flag up four of the very best displays by Hammers goal keepers in recent memory. 

In pole position we have Ludo’s very own monumental second half performance against Manchester Utd in the last match of the 1994-95 season.  The whole West Ham team that day battled Man Utd ‘tooth and nail’ in a display of commitment, pace and skill.  However, with the game dead locked at 1-1 Ludo had a golden last quarter of the match, in which he seemed to erect a one man brick wall, to keep out the increasingly desperate Utd attacks, including the one that resulted in that final stunning point blank save from Andy Cole.

We fans knew nothing of him, when he was signed from the Czech league during Lou Macari ’s brief managerial reign, but he went on to become a much loved figure at the club.  Ludo put in many fine performances in the Hammers green jersey, but he will always be remembered for that stunning ‘last ditch’ save from Andy Cole that denied Man Utd the title.  Not a bad highlight in a great and loyal career at the football club.  Is it?

Secondly, we have Phil Parkes’ defiance of WBA in the 3rd round FA Cup tie, away at the Hawthorns, in January 1980.  WBA outplayed us in that match, putting our rearguard under intense pressure.  The West Ham defence stood up well, but WBA still breached it on a number of occasions.  And every time that they did, Big Phil Parkes was there pulling off save after save!  We got a draw and defeated them 3-1 in the reply and, as we all know, we went on to win the Cup that season, with a superb 1-0 victory over Arsenal in the Final. 

Billy Bonds, in his autobiography, recalled the quality and magnitude of that display by Parkes and how crucial it was to the Hammers progressing in the competition.  Amidst the post-match victory celebrations at Wembley he recalled looking over to Parkes and thinking, we would not even have got here if it had been for you, big man!  What a great tribute to Parkes from one of the greatest Hammers skippers of all time!

Thirdly, I would nominate Mervyn Day’s debut as a 17 year old against Ipswich Town, at Portman Road, in 1973.  Day’s debut was a trial by fire!  Bobby Robson’s Ipswich laid seige to our goal and the young man stopped everything thrown at him to earn a valuable draw.  After the match, Ron Greenwood famously said that Day would be the Hammers keeper for the next ten years!

Sadly, Greenwood’s prediction proved to be wide of the mark.   By 1978 Day was displaced as first choice custodian at the club and soon after left for Leyton Orient.  Yet, for three seasons or so Day was probably the brightest goalkeeping prospect in English football.  He left with a FA Cup Winners medal, a ECWC Finalist medal and a number of England U-21 caps; and memories of that fantastic debut and a memorable tribute from Greenwood.

My final choice has to be Rob Green’s superb goal keeping performance against Arsenal, at the Emirates, in the ‘great escape’ of 2006-07.  Yes, Zamora scored the winner in a 0-1 victory, but equally vital was the performance of Green in defying the gooners onslaught on our goal.  It was one of those games that we should have lost by rights, but for all Arsenal’s dominance they just could not find a way past Green.

So that’s my brief trip down goalkeeping memory lane, in honour of big Ludo.  Four stories and four great goal keeping performances!  Any others spring to mind?

SJ. Chandos.

On Saturday I sat in the BMS experiencing a depressing sense of deja vu whilst watching West Ham’s latest abject capitulation to Bolton Wanderers.  If anything the performance was even more spineless and lacking in cohesion and purpose than other recent defeats to our nemesis.

The cohesion that we saw against Brum and Hull was missing, as was the vital work rate and commitment.  When you play Bolton you know beforehand that the game is going to be physical and aggressive.  You must match that and then go on to play your football.  As it was, the team failed to turn up from the kick off and we were quickly out fought in midfield and overran at the back. 

As I watched events on the pitch unfold, my mind drifted back to a memorable and hard fought West Ham win, when the team’s guts and aggression carried the day.  Bolton play a certain way, but the old Wimbledon FC were the original masters of that style.  I well remember the League Cup (or whatever it was called at that juncture) 4th round tie at Upton Park against them in 1989-90.  We won 1-0 with a Martin Allen goal, but the match itself was a running battle from start to finish.  Wimbledon came to intimidate and strong arm us, but the West Ham of the era of Dicks, Ward and Martin Allen stood up to the physical challenge that evening and won through.

If only we had shown a bit of that fighting spirit against Bolton, then they would not have walked all over us.  But it is old fashioned grit that this team appears to lack and Bolton exposed that yet again.  Lee Chung Yong’s play down the right flank troubled us and Davies and Elmander absolutely ran amok.  The early surrender by the Hammers midfield did not exactly help our centre-backs, but admittedly both Tomkins and Upson were poor on the day. 

The fact is that Owen Coyle got his tactics spot on and we failed to make the changes necessary to try to counter Bolton’s early ascendancy.  We were clearly, yet again, vulnerable to attacks down the right side.  As I previously suggested after the Man Utd match, Zola had the option of trying to counter it by playing Daprela in front of Spector and moving Diamanti inside to support Cole.  But there was no reaction from the bench after Bolton’s first goal, when it was apparent that we needed to make changes.  After we conceded the second it was virtually game over!  I am generally supportive of Zola-Clarke, but I found their delay in acting  inexplicable.

We started the match by trying to play our usual passing game, but all to no avail.  Bolton’s pressing tactics broke up and frustrated our forward play.   I thought that Cahill’s absence would prove a bonus for Carlton Cole, but in truth Bolton did not even need him.  Cole and Franco’s immobility up front made it far too easy for Zat Knight and co.

This season, the crowd at Upton Park have grown increasingly frustrated at the number of square balls and back passes.  Usually the player on the ball incurs the crowd’s wrath.  Yet, might it be the case that that our strikers are not working sufficiently hard off the ball to create the improved options for the forward pass?  Strikers need to make intelligent runs to dislodge defenders and create options and space.  Anyone lucky enough to have seen Geoff Hurst play will know that he was a master at this.  Hurst consistently worked hard off the ball,  making powerful runs in and around the box, pulling opposing defenders out of position and creating valuable space for himself and his team mates. 

Of course, the lack of real pace amongst our current strikers does not help.  The injured Zavon Hines is genuinely pacey and, of the others, Ilan is reputed to be quick in the final third, although we have seen precious little evidence of it so far.   However, we do miss having the option of playing the ball over the top for a pacy Bellamy type to run at and expose opposition defences. 

The performance against Bolton was, indeed, abject.  There can be no excuses made.  On Saturday we saw one side of the West Ham coin, their predictable inability to deal with a team like Bolton’s aggressive playing style.  The other side is the corresponding trait to play well and pull off unlikely results against the top PL teams. 

Now would undoubtedly be a good time for that latter tendency to reassert itself, with the tough Arsenal and Chelski away games coming up.  Will the team heed Valon Behrami’s clarion call to sort themselves out and put in some timely performances?  We can only hope that they do?

Beyond Arsenal and Chelski, Wolves await in a genuine ‘must win’ fixture!  In truth we probably need to win a minimum of four points from the next three matches to get firmly back on track.    

SJ. Chandos.

Apologies that I omitted to post the Man U player performance results earlier.

And apologies that I missed out Mido from the Bolton game players. Not that he would have troubled the scorers very much

I’ve out it off for as long as I can. What can I say that many of you haven’t already said in the comments to the two previous threads? This was an abject performance and quite possibly the worst I have seen from West Ham this season. I can think of no redeeming feature from it. Not a single player put in a performance worthy of the name. Quite simply, there should not have been a man of the match award. Quite how it was given to Diamanti, I really don’t know. It was his lack of courage which led us losing possession just before the first Bolton goal. Yes, his set pieces always looked dangerous, but he did little else to merit a man of the match award. Having said that, it is difficult to think who else to give it to.

Make no mistake, we could have conceded four or five. And most of them to Kevin Davis, who I predicted in my match preview would continue to a thorn in our side. Our central defenders were awful today. Slow, cumbersome and all over the shop. Upson in particular seemed to be on a different wavelength. Tomkins was clearly to blame for the second goal. But if his performance was off beam, then I don’t know how I can describe Spector’s. Woeful. He was given a complete runaround by the Bolton Number 27 from Korea. He looked a very good player down the right. Faubert was largely anonymous and then had to go off injured.

And it wasn’t a lot better in midfield. Parker had a bit of an off game for him. He went on one or two surging runs into the area, but once he gets there you just know he doesn’t know what to do next. And it always comes to nothing. Behrami was all over the pitch again, but not necessarily in a good way. His passing was atrocious today. Kovac had bursts of endeavour, but for most of the game he was in his normal headless chicken mode. Dyer nearly scored with his first touch, and had a few good little mazy runs, but none of them came to anything.

Up front Cole had his quietest game of the season and Franco was simply terrible. Mido hardly got a touch when he came on. The only bright spark was Stanislas, who came on for the last fifteen minutes and nearly resuced a point in injury time with a piledriver which hit the bar.

We didn’t ever look like getting in the game. If we had snatched a draw it would have been completely undeserved. They came to complete a mission to stop us playing our normal game and it worked. I’d hate to have to watch Bolton every week, but today they did what they had to do. And it had to be us who gave them their first away win since September. Bloody typical.

And as if my day couldn’t get any worse, I never even saw the Diamanti goal. The bloke in front of me stood up as if to leave, but stayed standing so I completely missed it. I was less than gruntled, as I told him in no uncertain terms. ******.

Oh well, we’ll get six points from the next two games to make up for today. No sweat. Ahem.

Please click HERE to rate the performances of the West Ham players against Bolton Wanderers.

Please use this thread to discuss the match as it progresses.

Bolton have been a bit of a bogey team for us in recent years – indeed, we have lost our last five games to them. But it’s vital we don’t repeat that form today. Three points would see us on 30 points. But just as importantly, we need to remember that our next two games are against Chelsea and Arsenal.

Bolton have a number of injury worries. Our only new absentee is Mark Noble, who has an injured arm. Thankfully Scott Parker is fit again. I susoect, therefore, we will see the same lineup that did so well against Burnley, which means no starting place for Jack Collison again.

Green
Faubert
Spector
Tomkins
Upson
Kovac
Parker
Diamanti
Behrami
Franco
Cole