That’s what the doctor ordered! What a solid performance that was against Southampton and the perfect way really to bounce back from a lackluster, gutless and amateurish display against an admittedly much better (and more expensive) Man City side. We know there still is a massive gulf between us and the top 5 teams in a variety of ways, a gulf which may not be bridged anytime soon, but the win at St.Mary’s once again showed what our lads are capable of if they stick together, fight for each other, run and chase both ball and opposition.
Put the effort in and the rest will follow more often than not. We have seen plenty of effort from every single player. Some were better than others, but not one of our players disappointed. Once again I’m struggling to name merely one MOTM.
Obiang has a strong case obviously with his wonderful goal and sublime pass for Carroll’s strike.
Carroll himself can claim he set us up for the win with his passionate and physical play upfront.
As for all-game running and never say die attitude, have your pick from skipper Mark Noble and new boy Robert Snodgrass.
How about Reid and Fonte keeping things together at the back or Kouyate for busting a gut while filling in at RB ?
Or Feghouli again having a decent game ?
If we can replicate that kind of performance on a more regular basis at our upcoming home games we should finish the season comfortably in midtable, maybe even attempt a late push on Europe if other results go our way. I have no doubt in my mind that Bilic has the team very much behind him. And it was impressive to hear how Bilic also had the away support 100% behind him who were singing his praises all game, loud and clear, a fact which will not have gone unnoticed by Gold and Sullivan.
I will try to actually stop calling the board out all the time, simply because there’s not much point to it – it’s their club, they make the decisions as they deem fit and writing a column or posting numerous comments won’t change their approach to transfer windows or the way they run the club.
I can drape myself in a West Ham flag and hop five times around Hamburg Town Hall on one leg while being blindfolded or I can also post 999 comments on their spending (or rather NOT spending), it’ll have about as much impact as my neighbour’s cat farting during Match of the Day – it won’t change a bloody thing!
So I will try to just enjoy what I see from our lads on the pitch and not get too excited or worked up about things happening off the pitch. Although it needs to be said that all the truly great and successful clubs in England have one thing in common today: They spend huge sums on transfers to improve their squads on a regular basis (70 or 80 million in every summer window at least) and they have top class state-of-the-art training facilities. I’ll leave it to yourself to work out if we do fall into that category yet or how likely we are to tick those boxes in the next few years.
As for the quick Concordia update I didn’t watch them play another midseason break friendly game as yet again it had been scheduled at the same time as the West Ham game, so I got my priorities right and watched our away performance on an online stream while following Concordia’s exploits via Facebook updates from the club.
Cordi were playing Hamburg SV’s development squad on a training pitch right next to Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion (BSB, The Original Russ and VoR will know the venue because they saw those pitches when they were over).
Concordia lost 2:5 on the day (Kevin scored again), but I should add that Hamburg SV’s development squad are playing one level above Concordia and for that reason I am not surprised at all my boys didn’t stand much of a chance there. But it surely was a good test before FINALLY the season proper will kick on again next Sunday with Cordi’s first away game in the league in 2017. In the near future we should also learn whether Concordia will actually try to officially throw their hat in the ring for promotion to the next level.
You need some serious backing from sponsors, a lot of administrative effort and also a proper stadium in order to play in the Regionalliga North, but you also don’t want to see them going for it while being short of funds only to find the club on the brink of financial meltdown one year later, so it’s exciting (and nailbiting) times for Concordia too!
In terms of West Ham we will hopefully see our lads deliver a committed performance against West Brom next, similar to the one just witnessed at Southampton. We should slowly see some players getting back into the fold from recent injuries, guys like Sakho, Byram or Arbeloa should be back in training soon.
Talking of which this is my main hope for the next transfer window: PLEASE sign a proper right back (or even two) in the summer, I don’t care what nationality or age they are or which league they currently play in (although they should of course be of a certain standard to begin with).
As long as they are proper RBs and are comfortable in that position, sign them! The RB position has been our weak spot for ages now and this is a major hole we need to fix eventually. Byram will continue to be a risk in terms of being unavailable either through injury or suspension, so at this point we cannot rely on him just yet. Once we have the RB issue sorted we can start worrying about bringing in more strikers again…;-))
COYI!