There is no denying that the Everton defeat was undeserved and clearly a missed opportunity. I previously argued that the Everton match could be both pivotal and defining for the rest of our season. Certainly, if we had managed to grab the points against Everton, we could have reinforced our position above the relegation zone. That would have then set us up very nicely for two winnable matches against Hull City away and Burnley at home.
But that would be doing it the easy way and the Hammers invariably have other, more painful, ways of going about things! Everton was not a ‘must win’ match, but a victory could have been instrumental in changing our focus from relegation struggle to more positive and ambitious aspirations. However, it does not now necessarily mean that the dye is cast for a season of struggle.
I am looking for us to scramble up to mid-table, consolidate there prior to Christmas and then position ourselves in the hope that a further push up the league table is possible in the New Year. That still remains the objective, in my view, as we now prepare for the Hull City and Burnley games. It is just that now we have put needless pressure on ourselves going in to those key games!
What went wrong? Well, we just set our stall out wrong from the start. I got to the ground late and I was absolutely amazed when I saw that Jimenez had replaced Noble. Surely if you rest Mark Noble, the obvious replacement is Diamanti?
The team did not play badly in the first half, but the incisive play in the final third, apparent against Arsenal and Villa, was missing. We over-elaborated, had little width and unsuccessfully tried to pass through the centre of the Everton defence.
After a lot of unproductive ’huff and puff,’ we suffered two self-inflicted goals of the worst kind. For the first, our players clearly failed to close down Saha and he had an absolute age to get his strike off, 0-1. For the second, we did not clear our lines properly, even though we had the opportunity to do so, 0-2. Everton must have thought Christmas had come early for them at Upton Park.
However, the introduction of Stanislas and Diamanti transformed us. The substitutes ran with the ball, initiated greater movement and gave us width. We looked a different team and pushed Everton on to the back foot. Diamanti played like a ‘force of nature’ and frightened Everton to death with his skill, vision and passing. The way in which he expertly picked out Stanislas’ forward run for our goal was just sublime!
Diamanti is a class player, can anyone still doubt that? Moreover, its clear that his presence lifts the team and brings direction and variety to our forward play. Yes, sometimes Diamanti is over-ambitious with his long range efforts, but you should not discourage a player like him from attempting the outrageous. It’s an integral part of his make-up. He will start hitting the back of the net soon, it’s just a matter of time.
Diamanti must start against Hull City! I reiterate my long standing view that he is best deployed at the point of the midfield diamond, just behind the two strikers. He needs to be given a free role to dictate play and closely support the strikers in advanced offensive positions. And I feel that this is an important point. If he is so accurate and dangerous shooting from 30 yards, imagine how deadly he could he be in and around the edge of the opposition box? In that respect, Diamanti could potentially play the same type of goal scoring role for us that Lampard does for Chelski!
With Diamanti on the pitch, pulling the strings, we carved out enough chances to win three matches! On leaving the ground I overheard the ‘fair weather’ tendency criticising Hines for missing his opportunities. No doubt the very same people, on Wednesday, were praising him to the heavens for grabbing the winner!
Yes, Hines missed two or three good chances. On a couple of those it was probably inexperience that was his undoing, snatching at shots that he should have placed more carefully. The fact remains that he is a real prospect, but he is not the finished product! As good as he currently is, we must not lose sight of that. Hines is on a steep learning curve and it is vital that he learns from his mistakes in this match and comes back all the wiser.
The key thing for me is that Hines has the natural instincts of a goal scorer. He instinctively gets in to dangerous goal scoring positions. He may have snatched his shots, but he had to be in the right position to get the goal scoring opportunities in the first place. You can sharpen your finishing, but it is far harder task to try and teach a striker that type of instinctive play.
We played some magical football in the second half. At times we tore the Everton rear guard apart. Hines is dangerous and Franco is starting to show what a neat player he is. Parker runs himself in to the ground for the cause and we have quality and variation in Berhami, Collison, Noble and Stanislas. The rearguard looks to have improved, but there are still lapses at the back that need work.
We need to be more professional in our approach. We need to defend higher up the pitch as a team, stop making silly mistakes at the back and convert our chances when we have the opposition under the cosh. And Zola needs to rethink using Diamanti as a so-called ‘impact sub’ and play him from the start. Even if he runs out of steam at the hour mark, hopefully by then he will have steered us in to a winning position. At the moment he is being brought on to try to rescue matches and that is counter-productive! When we start getting these things right then the results and points will follow.
I am actually very encouraged by the way that we played in the second half against Everton. I do not see any reason why this team cannot get it right and climb in to mid-table before the New Year.
Hopefully, they will not do it the hard way, but I think it is safe to say that ‘do it,’ they most certainly will!
SJ Chandos.
Sj we played a second rate Everton side and the danger is if we think as fans good fancy football is the answer well guess what we have a leaky goalie and defence as major weaknesses.
First part of the season our fitness levels were poor now they are better but it does beggar belief that ginge was sold tomkins and Ilunga are struggling and Upson is a shadow.Spector andFaubert do not possess the defensive skills required to give confidence so when we inevitably concede stupid goals immediatly the whole side looks drained of the how do we get out of this mentality and honestly looking at Zola and Clarkes demeanour neither look inspirational people cut out for management.
I think underestimating Hull or Burnley is insane but if we dont win both I reckon Zola should be honest and say he has bitten off more than he can chew and play the curbs boring style of play and start grinding rather than playing the beautiful game as it is a tough league this season.
I have to disagree with Aussie. We are playing good football and we are going to stay up. The season is not even halfway through November yet! Last year at this time Spurs were in our position and they finished 8th. I'm confident that we will finish in the 8-12 zone and we will do it playing attractively.
SJ, I like reading your posts but please, Valon's name is "Behrami", not "Berhami".
Oliver Spurs spent a fortune on players and Harry got them to play as a team most of their signings were at least 10-15 million purchases so dont compare they have modric world class we have no game turners and Diamante is our top buy .
I hate saying good things about spurs but we in all my years have been in their shadow please big investment is needed to take us past them,Fact!
In the new year IF we are to spend then we should be looking at the RB slot and LB cover and were possible move a few fringe players on. In the Summer we have been told in the Dux interview that MOST of the TV money will be spent on players, so we hopefully will have decent money to spend on a striker and a replacement for Jimenez.. Green needs a better defence and his confidence IMO is shot, selling Collins was a big mistake.
I agree that we will stay up however I do think it is time we had a settled team made up of our best 11 playing a 4-4-2 .Green Illunga DeCosta Upson Beharmi
Collison Parker Noble Diamanti Hines and Cole.
I agree with the right back and left back cover, E1, and while it's difficult to argue with your line up it still leaves us with a lack of width. I'd like to see Stanislas given a run (I've just about given up on Dyer) but for who?
Playing Diamanti behind 2 strikers and two wingers to give width is very attacking but it only leaves parker in Center mid ,you can sacrifice 1 of them strikers for a midfielder but then we are back to 1 Cole isolated up front on his own coz diamanti drops very very deep,there's nothing wrong with either system if you get them right,but playing a left footer on the left gives you the greatest balance of all,i think Diamanti's best position is through the middle but i would love to see him play Wide left for a game just to see if that gives us good balance.
Franco Cole
Diamanti Parker Behrami/ Collison/Stanislas
The Intermarket group seem serious about buying the Hammer,s ,a silver lining or even better bring out the competition,bring it on boys I hope you have proper money and the best intentions for our great club!be lucky.
A number of people keep mentioning the sale of Jimmy Collins being some sort of reason why we are struggling to pick up results- he was hardly an inspirational player who turned game for us and defensively Villa are conceding as many goals as us (four in three games). The trouble we have is that the team has been changed across the summer, with Diamante/ Hines/ Franco/ Jiminez/ Da Costa coming in and they are all foreign newcomers to the Prem requiring time to settle but also click with their new team mates. I have no fear we will be midtable by Xmas and pushing on. I also firmly believe we will smash Hull City a week Saturday! Believe and get behind the team.
1st things 1st, the new owner situation, it all sounds very promising but i won't get my hopes up too high but if it is true then it is brilliant news, they seem like a group that would actually care about us fans and the club in general. As long as they can pay off our debts and have money spare for us to buy players in the transfer markets, then that will be all good but lets just wait and see on that one.
Secondly, i personly thaught we dominated the game on sunday and was in shock that we didn't get anything out of the game. Our football is brilliant. I must agree with other about diamanti, he looks like a top buy (for once in a long time) but i don't agree about what your saying about jimenez. Believe me he is a very good footballer but has had a confidence knock as he couldn't get in the team much at inter and he hasn't started that many games for us this season. He needs to play on the wing and show his prescence there as i know he has got good talent. Some players settle more quickly than other like diamanti but jimmy will do soon.
Just seen Benitez is looking at CC for 12Mil in January.
Doubt that will happen, no surely not. But then again, this is West Ham so it probably will !!!!!
i wouldn't worry too much about the cole situation right now, if and it is a big IF we get taken over i highly doubt will sell him, if we don't then we would want more than £12 mil for him surely. I hope this new owner thing is true and it does sound convincing, do read it if you havn't already. I think what we would need to do in january if the takeover happens is buy a striker, lb and rb. Chamakh would be a good buy as he is on gr8 form, only thing is would he be able to do it in the prem, so maybe buy someone from the prem, but who knows, lets just sit tight and hope for good news soon.
Tevez or Bellamy would be a good bye!Haha
Make no mistake, there will be clubs in for Cole in January.
agree that diamanti must start but maybe zola thinks he needs him for the last quater? well maybe he needs to come on earlier then? if people start jumping on hines back then please just look what happened to sears!!!! i feel that west ham fans are partly to blame for his struggles and we should give hines all the suport as well as stan !!! on that note isnt it time someone came up with a name for valon? maybe "ram" or something coz i cant spell his name lol !
12 mill for cole to liverpoo ? yer right.
as for the american takeover……shimmey shimmey lads…we need you asap !
As SJ Says WH never do it the easy way always the hard one. We always make the easy games the hard ones to win and viceversa with the hard ones. Everton should have been a 3point win . However with our finishing not as good as it should have been we could have had a 3/4 goals. With Hull & Burnley we must make these 2 count and get 6 if not 4poinyts from these games. We then have MU@UP to play. WE will most likely win against MU and draw the others.____With paper talk on the menu once again we see they are saying that CC will move to Anfiled come January, more likely Upson will leave as he has still not signed a new contract and in my mind will not do so. So let him go and bring in new players who are happy to play for us.____With new reports in the Telegraph&KUMB on takeover we hear that the Intermarket bid is possibly gathering pace and is a London bid not NY although__fronted by Bowe. Accordingt to the report they have asked for a non disclosure agreement. AS they say a watched kettle never boils, however we continue to be hopeful that talks are continuing in a positive way and some agreement may be acheived before DEC 11 and Straumurs meeting .____WATCH this SPACE!!!!Lol!
I think we played quite well on Sunday ,we just need a bit off luck , which always seems to go to the other team! especially the refs decisions!
Everton had 5 yellow cards most of which should have been given to Fellaini how he stayed on,well, only the ref know's,we got no yellows. l think that shows how much we got at them.There must have been 20,000 fans shouting at the ref in frastration by the end of the match,how come's we can all see whats happening but the ref didn't?
Good article SJ but i think that you have the focus in the wrong area. Yes – Diamanti does lift the team and the decision to play Jimi over Nobes was a strage one BUT that is not why we lost the game.
We lost because for the 8th time in 9 games (!!!) we conceded 2 goals or more.
If (and we won't be) we are relegated this year (don't worry we won't be) it will wholey due to the poor performances at the back. Illunga has looked a shadow of the player he was last year. Faubert is a 100% better than last year but is still not as good a defensive FB as Lucash is and Upson has no idea how to marshall the back 4 without Lucash. Furthermore Zola appears to have no idea what his best CH pairing is – Last year he KNEW it was Matty and Ginge.
I see the papers are reporting Benitez sniffing round CC – fine £20m and he's yours. £32m and you can have Matty too – then go out and buy a decent CH, Chamakh and make Parker the captain.
Colins was a bad sale we should have sold Upson in the Summer and kept JC. Never mind it is all water under the bridge. if we are looking for a striker Pav looks a good bet as he wants out of WHL perhaps we can do a swap for Upson and then do them over when we play them next year as payback!Lol!!
Fishy – we could go ala Keane and Defoe and buy Pav from them for £7m and then sell him back to them in 18mths time for £10m?
Tevez & Bellamy would also be good buys as they get fed up sitting on the bench and also want more first team footie
But that should be GOODBYE!!!
More likely we would go back to the Italy connection and buy someone from there.
I think if the takeover happens we should buy chamakh and get either carlos vela from arsenal or mario ballotelli on loan (what the heck, get both of them on loan), that way our striking problems are out the window, id love us to get keiron gibbs but can't see that 1 happening but lets just hope that we do get taken over from people with money. If we don't i don't agree about selling upson, we have lost ginge and we can't afford to loose matty too. I'd much rather sell the fringe players who arn't getting much of a run in the team. If it means not buying anyone and keeping the same team then so be it. I'm going to keep a lookout for this 'hopeful' takeover.
Cole must stay at all costs because we won't be able to spend ourselves!
If he want's out,in the summer fine,right now he would be impossible to replace.
totally agree m8
For once Chris I totally agree with you, at the moment he's irreplaceable
Guys – I know Collins was a good player, but he was no world beater and in Da Costa I believe we have a far superior player.
Much of our malaise currently is due to confidence. 0-2 the other night and heads could have dropped. Instead we saw a side that knew they were the better side, striving to fight their way back. They nearly did and deserved to win, but that's football.
If we lose Cole we are in the mire. However, I think Cole likes the management and would probably choose to stay if allowed to, at least until the summer.
Upson has to be sacrificed if we need funds.
chris – I'm firmly of the position that Diamanti plays central behind a front two. I don't believe he would give us any balance by playing on the left – he is not a winger that goes to the byline and pulls the ball back. He nearly scored (not for the first time) a worldly goal from the right flank the other night and his passes from central midfield were a class apart.
With Behrami parker & Collison behind him we have enough energy and defensive cover to give him his head.
I agree, Devo. If Diamanti plays it must be behind the strikers where he can run at defences. He is the one player we have who looks as if he could do something different. The first since Benayoun left.
Diamanti is a quality player, i like the way he controls and shoots, on the everton match, i cant reali say anything because that was 1 team playin on the pitch and that was the Irons.
Pleased to see you back, Roymondo or can I call you Roy?:)
Roy is fine.
If Benitez thinks his gettin his bloody RED hand on carlton cole, he can kiss his arse goodbye, benitez is startin to get on my nerves.
Aussie you alright m8, i agree m8, i dont like totscums, i hate that team the most in the PL, when we get the investments we need, and hopefully a bloody good 1, then we can become a top PL team, forget spuds, no need to talk about a rubbish team like them…
A bit early to say but Hines looks like the real deal. He has incredible pace and an uncanny knack of finding himself in the right position to get a shot away.
I still think it's too early to pass judgement on Diamante.
For me the find of the closed season is Franco. I didn't think I'd see another player of his calibre manage to do it but he, dare I say it, reminds me of Brooking in his ability to look composed. He seems to be able to give himself time and is finding the killer ball time and again. I love the way he seems to take pleasure in others around him performing. A true team player for my money.
As for Cole leaving all I've seen so far is speculation. He's clearly enjoying the fruits of GZ & SC's labours. Why on earth would he want to leave in January when he's getting England palytime, enjoying the footie of his career and growing in stature all of the time?
Cole to move on in January – not a chance!
COYI!!
I think a lot will depend on what happens on the buyer front and where we are in the league. Once that is clear we will either be selling, buying or doing nothing! Who knows.
Yep – no-one really knows what will happen but selling Cole would definitely not be in line with "Project Football." If he did go then I would lose much of the faith that I have gained of late, in Scott Duxbury, as our Chief Exec.
Yet again (after 44 years as a West Ham fan) I am left wondering how long it will be before we can field a team capable of consistency………at winning that is…!
We are without a shadow of a doubt the most consistantly inconsistant team in the premiership competition, and from my distant observations of recent performances I can come to only one conclusion….we are in dire need of an "Inspirational Player".
When and if we can secure such a person, will dictate the fortunes of the team this year, we need another Tevez, or a Di Canio, someone who as soon as they touch the ball creates excitement and inspiration for the other players to emulate.
At present even though we have some talented players in the side, in my opinion there are none of this "Star " quality we need…..and if, as in the past, the Academy produces more young talent, we must not let thses palyers slip through our fingers to the big money clubs. Harry was right..!!
Isn't that exactly what Diamanti is?
I think our problems are at the back. That's what needs sorting out and, if we're going to sign anyone in January, I'd like to see a solid, defence minded, right back.
I see what you mean but i generally believe diamanti is a player that you describe, 'star quality'. He shows a real threat and makes most WHU fans excited including me when he is on the ball. I think we could do with a few more players like him.
New owners: January transfer window, buy a rb, lb and a striker, sell fringe players.
No new owners: January transfer window, keep hold of the team we have got.
Totally agree about our academy players, there is soo much pottential in these players, give it a year and i think frank nouble will be getting a good run in the team, he looks really good, big, strong and extremely fast. Hines will also be top notch soon as we can see how good he is at the moment, he just needs that finishing off bit to put him up there with the best.
COY!!!
[...] Intent on Doing it the Hard Way? | West Ham Till I DieThere is no denying that the Everton defeat was undeserved and clearly a missed opportunity. I previously argued that the Everton match could be both. [...]
Every single attack should end up in shooting. I do not blame Diamanti.
Cole to move for 12M, not a chance
I've been on the road for a couple of weeks (New Orleans) and had the last couple of games recorded (Tivo) Brilliant finish (Villa) and over all one of the best games of the year against Everton. Two shots against develops into two goals against…sad. Upside, Diamanti, not a sub player anymore, please Zola recognize the energy and skills he is bringing. Franco, a player I spoke out about a couple of months ago is turning out to be more than a body in the pit, that some of you cried out a couple of months ago.
Give Behrami a couple of more games to get back in shape. DeCosta did not Costa as much as it brought. The only thing that worries me is the central defenders. Why are we at this level and at this time of the season seeing every dead ball, corner and a free kick as a threat?? Do we miss the Aussie THAT much?? I think we are on a roll and i do trust Zola to take us to a top eight spot after New Years. How I wish we had Hull this weekend….dying to see a "live game". COYI!!!