Oh Carlton Cole! You could have been a hero, yet as so often you scuffed your shot. But let’s not be too pernickety. This was a battling performance of the highest order. To play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and emerge with anything is a credit to the team. To nearly emerge with three points was perhaps asking too much.
When Bellamy put us one up so early on, I don’t think many of thought Chelsea wouldn’t score at least one goal, and so it proved. Under this amount of pressure far better teams than West Ham have cracked. We didn’t and it is a tribute to the central midfielders and central defenders that we managed to maintain out discipline.
Up front Bellamy battled and harried as if his life depended on it. He took his goal brilliantly. Cole was useless in the first half and lost possession almost every time he got the ball. In the second half he somehow discovered some controlled aggression and managed to hold the ball up well and had a couple of chances he should have done better with.
In midfield Scott Parker was magnificent. Noble too showed some of his old form and battled away. Behrami was everywhere as usual and Collison improved after a largely anonymous first 20 minutes. His close control became excellent.
At the back I thought Davenport and Upson looked very comfortable together and rarely looked troubled in the first half. Ilunga had a much better game than against Spurs. Lucas Neill didn’t do anything spectacular, but then he never does. He was lucky not to give away a penalty late on for a trip on Kalou, I think it was. Luckily the tosser of a referee didn’t see it. I cannot abide Mike Riley. He always seems to ruin a game.
Anyway, I think we can all be well impressed by that performance. Now let’s beat the Villa on Saturday!
Green 8
Ilunga 7
Neill 6
Upson 7
Davenport 7
Noble 7
Parker 8
Behrami 7
Collison 7
Cole 6
Bellamy 7
UPDATE: Just so we realise what this means, it’s the second away draw against a Top 4 side this season.
Carlton Cole to Liverpool in January !!!! can’t be true..can it?
I feel everyone needs to give Cole a break, i am not his biggest fan by any strecth, a striker who does’nt score goals is not what any club needs but anyone watching the game yesterday has to see that he caused Chelsea problems. Everyone seems to be of the opinion that the guy can’t hold the ball up but when as is often the case he has defenders all over him and never gets a free kick it’s not hard to see why, yet as soon as he make’s a challenge he get’s penalised for it just like Peter Crouch. You just have to look at Heskey (and i am not putting him in that bracket) to see how a striker can work for the team without being prolific. I would say though that Sear’s need’s to be given an extended chance in the team, i think he can cause real problems and may give us something different it was also good to see Collison back in the starting line up i thought his touch and his feet were superb. All in all a brilliant workman like performance and they played good football in tight spaces and the defence were playing the ball out rather than punting it long and Green is looking for the short ball. Things seem to be coming together our football is improving just sometimes watching West Ham is like watching lesbian porn there’s just no penertration sort out the strikers get them scoring goals and we will be fine. Come on you Irons!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So funny how most you blokes that post on here think a draw is such a good result! Us chelsea fans are very disappointed by the loss of 2 points. Just shows the difference between a top club and a bottom fish. Good luck with the rest of the season, hope you guys don’t get relegated for Zola’s sake.
ok mac – i see what you’re sayin now. yes, point taken but i really do believe that cole’s workrate and the way in which he put himself about yesterday is part of the reason that we were so damn competetive in the match. I would argue that if he had been anonymous for 89 minutes then we might very well have been 2 or 3 down in which case banging in a goal would not have been so worthwhile.
I do however take your general point that his goal return is, to say the least, disappointing
Headmaster, it was simply a hypothetical question where I was asking if we preferred Cole as he was yesterday – pain in the backside to defenders (as you rightly say), but missing one decent chance – or as some great strikers are ie anonymous for 89 minutes, but scoring with a single decent chance which gives the team a win.
I know which Cole I would prefer!
Your right Iain – Riley was a hopelessly inconsistent tosspot ! Everyone knows where our short comings are – so I wont go down that road – All I would say that once again the supporters and the atmosphere were truly electric in the Shed upper – by comparison to the sterile silent that populated the rest of Stamford Bridge. It was like a library !
Yes Cole does create problems for defences but his distribution and strike power is poor and I would have preferred to have kept Zamora in a similar role. I just find it ridiculous that we should have given him a 5 year contract.
Headmaster, thanks for the nod. Cole is nothing if not a battering ram in the old style centre-forward fashion, (Peter Withe, David Cross anyone?) and as an ex centre-forward myself, was always taught to play with my back to goal and to hold the ball up for the midfield. However, I was also dropped for lack of goals on more than one occasion. Cole also seems an honest sort of guy who would be naturally upset at missing the chance. Frustratingly, he could be such a player if he added scoring to his game, but he’s just not a natural striker of the ball. Surely has to be why Chelsea let him go.
You make a good point about the regular commenters on this blog Headmaster.
If it’s any help to new commenters then the opportunity to make yourself better known exists on the “ABOUT” section of this site found just underneath the West Ham logo at the top of the pages.
Thought Cole played well but he missed TWO sitters not one as people are talking about. How about the miss kick also in the 2nd half when the ball was squared across the goal from the left ? He actually did not even make contact with the ball !! my nan bless her could of even got that one.
If tristan is no better, WHY did we sign him? I bet Freddie would have ‘poached’ it.
Again, I will say he played well, but that’s his first good game for a fair few weeks and at a time when we need goals not possesion it’s time to try another.
Absolutely delighted Rupert the bear (Faubert) didnt play, been blasting him on here all year as the worst ever and what a difference we were without him, coincidence, NO just that we actually had 11 agaist 11 this time not the usual 10.
Hats off to Davenport too, he did play exceptionally well against very good players. Agree with most on here, Parker was MOM, Green, Behrami, Collison and Upson along with Bellamy and Davenport were top class all day. Collison WILL be the next big thing. If he was at Manure or Chelski everyone would be raving.
At this point I would settle for a draw against the Vile and follow that with a wins against the Stoke heavies and pompey playboys. That’s what I’ve asked Santa for anyway.
P.S.
Dear Santa, please can west ham have a top quality goal scorer and a creative midfielder. Then I genuinely believe we could even chase a European spot.
coyi
Cheers Mac – Difference being David Cross scored 99 goals in 227 games (one every 2.3 games).
Yep Psycho knew where the net was alright.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hdgNhNGk0hQ
YES JOE YOU CAN HAVE UPSON AS LONG AS WE GET OWEN IN RETURN PLUS A BIT EXTRA OF COURSE!!! FAIRS FAIR
YES GORDEN YOU CAN HAVE BELLAMY FOR 18M ,WHAT! HE SCORED AGAINST CHELSKI ,GOT TO BE WORTH BILLIONS NOW SURELY!!!!!!!THATS HOW IT WORKS IS’NT IT.
How, how, how can tristan, sears or di michele be WORSE than Cole?
How?
It’s worth reminding people that he also scuffed an awesome goal scoring opportunity prior to passing the ball to cech in the dying minutes.
I am worse than cole I accept, but I’m not paid a small ransom each week to at least hit a ball, or at least make an effort to score.
Honestly I would like to see how he would get on in the championship. I think he would be an average championship player at best.
Was delighted to see faubert dropped.
Anyway, enough negativity, great team performance, collison is the way forward. I believe we have a chance now against goal machine villa
COYI
great all round performance ! Cole is the battering ram for defence ! he should only play that role for 80 mins, then replace him with pace and a preditor in front of goal ! SEARS ! look how great young jack collison is proving to be ! Parker berhami noble looked excellent , all over the place ! me thinks the future is very bright !
COYI !
Goatygav – thanks for the heads up – have added my bit to the about tab.
Unfortnately tho, what I was alluding to is the ease with which even a regular contributor can effectively anonymise themselves on this blog by assuming some other identity. I am not sure if s.o falls into this category or if he/she was simply a casual visitor but my suspicion is it is probably a regular on a bit of a wind up just to set the touch paper alight!
The anonymous thing is ok just so long as it doesn’t get personal as it did on this site some significant while ago! (led ultimately to a banning)
Know what you’re saying mate. I’m also convinced there’s one or two who use several pseudonyms. They’re recognizable by their style of writing, superior attitude and probably don’t realize they’ve been sussed at all.
Love the way that everyone greeted old wine blog with the contempt he deserves and simply didn’t respond to him! whoops – i guess i just did…..
in my head i am singing a rendition of the UP version of the ‘blue flag’ song. in fact, it won’t leave my brain today…
Goatygav I’m on the about tap great idea for those of us who are genuine.
reading the posts , seems everyone agrees about Cole not being a striker so lets hope GZ and SC are reading this as well. As for Neill…yeh a pay cut would be justified, he reckons that he will finish his career out here, well he might be back sooner than he thinks. Thought he had a better game at Chelsea but still lacks pace and positioning, which is surprising considering his experience now! Behrami, Collison, Parker are automatic now, or should be, Noble needs match fitness now.By the way lads, the support was fantastic, really chuffed to hear it all. Weren’t Chelski lot quiet!!!!!!
I’m almost a dissenting voice re Cole; I thought he did a good job on Sunday, apart from the side foot that wouldn’t have troubled Cech’s sandwich bag, and gives us a good third option when we just need to slow play down a bit, now it seems he can keep hold of the ball. That’s third behind Freddie and Bellamy. I’d far rather have a fit Ashton playing the number 9 role though, any day.
As for Neill, can he get much slower? His reading of the game seems to be there, he just can’t move his backside quick enough. That said, I think he does perform reasonably well as captain, viz his dragging Bellamy away at half time on Sunday, when Bellamy looked like he was about to talk himself into yet another needless yellow. And it was never a penalty – I just watched the re-showing on ESPN (SE Asia), and Lampard made such a meal of it even he’d have turned down a second helping.
All in all a very sound performance, and very happy to see the youngsters back, including Noble (can he still be thought of as a youngster?). Parker and Behrami really are turning into midfielders to be reckoned with.
Bring on Villa.
Pompey are having a clear out, So the papers say,defoe,crouch,james, johnson and anybody else in the squad that they get an offer for. Owen is ONLY on £105,000 a week !!!! the bar codes have offered 80,000 plus bonuses. Safe to say he won’t be coming to us then. Would’nt mind seeing Johnson and or Defoe coming back.
Sus’ed it ,it Neil’s BIRD S.0 SHEILA OSTRICH
daily mail stiring up SH*T again.
Today Paul Hayward wrote in his daily mail column about Zola not celebrating Bellers opener against Chelsea and blatenly trying to make something out of nothing. So Zola is a gent! Why can he not show a bit of respect by toning down his celebrations when we score against a club he loved playing for. True he is now West ham’s manager but everyone is intitled to show affection to previous loves, if only more players in the game were like him maybe there would not be so much disloyalty in football.
Paul Hayward should stop trying to turn the west ham fans against Zola or the team he is just trying to fill his pockets full of cash he would make from writing crap about west ham which most papers seem to try and do.
Zola didnt need to celebrate the travelling west ham fans who were fantastic, made so much noise that Zola must have thought chelsea had scored! I am sure he never heard cheering like it at stamford bridge before.
COYI