Togetherness

[South Coast White]

This is what every team needs to be able to perform. This current squad are so fragmented it is almost unbelievable. When we get possession it always seems that there is never a quick pass. So many times we have the ball away or had not pass available and lost control. This has to be addressed. Unfortunately it's too late, we are in freefall and we have to accept this. I cannot remember a more disjointed squad in the last 15 years. Please FFC make realstic changes to the current situation now, we cannot and as fans accept how thing are obviously heading.

[Arthur]

What 'realistic changes' do you want to see?

And what difference do you think they'll make to where we are 'obviously heading'?

[South Coast White]

It is clear that when in possession of the ball that we do not attack with speed and confidence. So many times tonight we had control in midfield and there was nobody out wide as an option so we play back and kick long, we just seem clueless on attacking options. Last season we were so good with this, fair enough it's a very different league but basics don't change.

[ScalleysDad]

The live stream dropped in and out a few times tonight but the most telling bit I saw about mid way through the second half was Chambers advancing with the ball past the halfway line. He was looking left and right and waving his arms, I suspect to get somebody to move forward or make themselves available. Five relatively short and easy passes later we were further back down the pitch than where he started from and then we easily lost possession. I would imagine there were words expressed at the time. Some of the players appear to be so aloof and isolated its ridiculous and when they are not being that they often look genuinely lost which on a standard regulation football pitch is a pretty tough thing to excel at. Mitro knows his place and where he needs to be and for very brief flashes we combined well to get the ball into the West Ham box but I ran out of fingers counting the times we had players facing away from the ball, running into crowded areas, marking empty zones or simply looking around themselves for direction. Over successive weeks, with one notable exception, we have seen critical analysis of most aspects of our game and we have used most of the derogatory phrases in the dictionary to sum up our performances but tonight was the first time I really noticed that we cannot even pass the ball very well. That enforced break did us the world of good!

[bobbo]

It is clear that when in possession of the ball that we do not attack with speed and confidence. So many times tonight we had control in midfield and there was nobody out wide as an option so we play back and kick long, we just seem clueless on attacking options. Last season we were so good with this, fair enough it's a very different league but basics don't change.

i agree in fact I said the same to my mate who I was with the difference between w/ham and us in attack mode was so apparent I was so dissapointed after blast of a start . We all know only one or two are anywhere near prem standard.

Footnote I thought anguissa did ok and I've been a critic.

Had sit with my mouth zipped I was in the West Ham corporate bit where they come out.

[Arthur]

It is clear that when in possession of the ball that we do not attack with speed and confidence. So many times tonight we had control in midfield and there was nobody out wide as an option so we play back and kick long, we just seem clueless on attacking options. Last season we were so good with this, fair enough it's a very different league but basics don't change.

I would disagree that last season we built our attacks quickly; the season before, when we had Aluko, more so, but our style of play under Jokanovic was always predominantly one of patient probing rather than lightning speed. Nor am I of the view that this (attacking with speed) counts among the 'basics' of football. Surely the basics are individual skills: control, passing, shooting, concentration etc. Playing with a quick, attacking style of football is a team objective.

Having made such a lightning start tonight, however, I do agree that we ought to have had a more positive approach in the opening thirty minutes; we seemed unwilling to risk playing one- and two-touch football through the midfield. Our passivity aided West Ham in building up a 'head of steam' that resulted in their overturning the deficit before half-time. And yet, in other matches, when we do try - like last season - to find a player to pass to under pressure (rather than 'kick long'), we have been dispossessed and sometimes conceded goals as a direct result, which then arouses the ire of the supporters.

I thought that in the second-half we struck a better balance between trying to get forward while defending in numbers when the need arose (yet still 'lost' the half). Pivotal was Cairney's ability to move the ball under pressure. Unfortunately, Mitrovic's ability to run at defenders is not a strength to his game, so we were unable to threaten in the manner that West Ham did with Antonio and (later on) Arnautovic.

[toshes mate]

My memeory is of Cairney receiving the ball and being surrounded by three or four opponents determined to stifle him and force concession of possession.  Three or four opponents on one man means:

i) FFC has at least two players unmarked so what were they doing?
ii) WHU were confident they could bully back possession via numbers because we posed no threat other than through attacks on the break.
iii) The formation used by our manager is spineless and defeatist before we start a game.

Only Odoi showed in patches how to pressure opponents in the same way WHU were pressuring Cairney and it is down to how you shape up to the opponent and force him to go where you want him to be whether you do it in numbers or alone.  Basic defensive skill.

[Arthur]

The formation used by our manager is spineless and defeatist before we start a game.

The formations Ranieri employed - as I saw them: 4-1-3-2 in the first-half; 4-2-3-1 in the second-half - are not, in themselves, cowardly or defeatist. What we didn't have, in my opinion, was enough mobility: in terms of players - be they midfielders or full-backs - breaking alongside Cairney in the second-half, affording him more options for a defence-opening pass.

But this has, in my opinion, been the case all season: Ranieri - like Jokanovic before him - has not found a team that can launch a quick counter-attack ending in a goal-scoring opportunity. To what extent this is because we don't possess players with the speed, stamina and skill to enable this, or to what degree both bosses have come up short in their coaching/tactical abilities is a difficult question to answer.

What Ranieri did say, however, post-match, was that: 'We started well; we should have continued playing,' which suggests that it was not part of his game-plan for us to limit our attacking ambitions and concede the territory in the manner that we did. For reasons that may-or-may-not be of Ranieri's making, the players did not 'continue playing' and this allowed West Ham to exert an ever-increasing grip on the first-half.