Now then, I never truly believed we would or could beat Arsenal, not at the current time with our current issues at hand – but this ? If Arsenal had been a bit more clinical and ruthless in the first half we could have well conceded ten. Even considering our injury woes (with another name added to the list in Collins) a team in the Premier League simply shouldn’t ship the amounts of goals we do, those teams unfortunate enough to still do it usually are the ones who get relegated eventually.
At this point I cannot even muster the effort to feel much anger or frustration anymore, it’s more like a casual shrug of the shoulders, accepting the fact that this is what happens when you make the decisions our board (mainly) and our manager (to some degree) have made in the past few weeks and months.
The injury issue has gone way beyond the ridiculous and bizarre status now, we keep on losing players to muscle injuries, so someone needs to take a long, hard look at the way we train and how we prepare our players for upcoming matches, including basic stuff like warming up and warming down properly. That’s where it all begins really as we will probably not win another game this season if we have to field a different starting XI time and time again for injury reasons.
It’s a vital element of successful teams that they start the same group of defenders every single game, that breeds confidence and a natural understanding between the players where everyone knows exactly what his role is, which opponent to pick up, what runs to make etc.
If you have different a different set of defenders in every game chances are there will be more mistakes, misunderstandings and holes for the opposition to exploit.
Also, why can’t we keep the ball for any significant length of time ? I have rarely seen so many of our players give so many passes away cheaply like our lads have done this season. Neither have I seen us leave the opposition with so much space to express themselves in, over and over again – is there a strategy behind not chasing or attacking opposition players anymore ?
Watching Bilic’s face and body language on the touchline these days is utterly painful, I really feel for the guy, especially as I can sense his suffering – I truly believe he loves this club a lot (surely more than most of the players) and every one of those goals we keep conceding must be like another dagger through his heart – or another nail in his coffin if you want to be cynical at this point. I’ll firmly nail my colours to the mast here: I am still a massive fan of Slaven, I’d love to see him stay for a long time (a lot longer than our board anyway or Payet for instance), being given more support to turn things around, alas I reckon our board will be more than happy to use him as a welcome scapegoat to deflect some major flak away from themselves.
Carroll returning and scoring almost immediately after running onto the pitch was about the only bright spot in the game, but how long will Carroll be able to play before going down with yet another knock or injury ? And besides: What good is it to see Carroll scoring two goals a game if we continue to ship four or five at the other end ?
It’s comical how our board have let down Bilic in the transfer window as all the glaring squad needs we had and still have were merely patched up, and badly at that, but not solved.
We are now officially in a relegation scrap and as we all know from plenty of experience in the past, these relegation battles can be tough and they usually last longer you may want or expect them to – and sometimes of course they end not with the result you hope for. Do we really have enough guts and fight in our squad to prevail ? I surely hope so, but I’m not overly confident I have to say. As mentioned in my column previously I don’t mind a relegation scrap, it’s what I had to get used to from the very beginning of my West Ham supporting days and in a way it feels quite natural to face yet another uphill battle.
The problem is that with our stadium move we simply weren’t supposed to be in this position to begin with. That stadium was supposed to host glorious footballing feasts featuring West Ham playing their opposition off the park more often than not, giving the claret and blue faithful top performances galore, provided by a team filled with quality players from top to bottom. There’s no way around it, our owners must finally put up or shut up (and preferably sell up too). Like 20 years ago we need to bring in a Hartson/Kitson combo to save our season, this time though we might need a striking combo plus a defensive combo as well in order to survive. It probably won’t be plain sailing once again, but I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world!
As for Concordia thankfully they saved my weekend and gave me plenty of reasons to be cheerful, five to be exact! A solid no-nonsense 5:0 home win against FC Suederelbe helped to cement Cordi’s top spot in the Oberliga Hamburg, no goals from Kevin this time (but he had a great assist for the first goal), however, our goal machine (and leading goalscorer in the league) Benjamin Bambur more than stepped up to the plate by scoring four goals in this one.
I hope the link to the videos works this time, you may have to endure a bit of online advertising in the process, but the goals are worth watching of course, if you fancy it, plse copy the following into your browser (for some reason the HTML link doesn’t work):
www.fupa.net/tv/match/wandsbeker-tsv-concordia-fc-suederelbe-3574682-24244/tor-10-concordia-hamburg-1
As you all know by now I’ll be coming over again to East London this Friday, for a full 9 days too this time! Thanks in advance by the way to certain people on here who have already made sure that part of my itinerary in England has been taken care of splendidly, like sorting out my ticket for the Liverpool game or organising a lovely Christmas lunch in the company of fellow WHTIDers, you all know who you are! Cheers for that! My most recent record when watching the Hammers in person ain’t too shabby either, a win against Burnley, draw against Palace, plus wins against Man United and Bournemouth. If I should indeed manage to get through the upcoming three games without seeing us lose in the process I shall be as happy as a toddler in a ball pit.
Bournemouth to their credit have shown that Liverpool are not invincible, with the right spirit and application West Ham too surely can get a decent result against them, despite the recent shambles on and off the pitch. I for one will be singing, shouting and cheering my lungs out, especially as it’ll also be my first ever Hammers away trip (unless you want to count a preseason encounter against Hamburg SV in the town of Flensburg a few years ago). Anfield is supposed to be one of the best football stadium experiences ever, so I shall cherish the occasion, whatever the final score is going to be. I will be amongst my fellow Hammers and I will be watching West Ham, what more could I want ? Other than a cheeky away win of course!
COYI!