West Ham

[Eeeeen]

West Ham leading by a goal to nil, thanks to Nick Pope.  Newcastle in frustrating mode, West Ham OK, but nothing special.  Almiron obviously shat on everybody's cornflakes this morning 'cos nobody wants to pass the ball to him when he's in acres of space.  Improvement needed of we're to get anything out of this.  Not holding my breath.

[KMK]

Isak 2 goals! HWTL 

[cg40k]

Good second half adjustment of our attitude

[cg40k]

And we bottle the lead. 2 points dropped off

[GhostfaceKillah]

West Ham are just a shitty little long ball team who play in short phases for short periods every half. To drop 2 points here is a really really poor result as we should be burying teams like this, especially 2-1 up going into the last few minutes.

[Eeeeen]

Too many players seemingly not understanding the importance of keeping possession in these circumstances; or, in some cases, simply not able to. Howe also has to have the courage to replace tired legs.

[cg40k]

We don't have that killer instinct. When isak scores his second, we should have gone for the throat

[GhostfaceKillah]

It's a combination of killing teams off, but also being ruthless enough to dig in and make sure you don't concede again. I thought Isak had his most complete performance of the season, but 2-1 up, on your hat-trick, through on goal with a 1 vs 1, he simply has to score it. Dominating possession and having most of the ball for the majority of the game has to yield more. This result will wind me up for quite a while as Pope through the first goal away, and the 2nd goal is just sloppy play at a stage in the game where we needed composure and experience to shine through. Leaving a player free on the edge of the box at that stage of the game is infuriating, as we have just tossed 2 points down the drain.

[Eeeeen]

The worst thing for me about today's result, was that even in the first half - a litany of over over-hit, under-hit and downright wrong passes, of no choices and poor choices and no-tackles and foul tackles, wrong runs and no runs; despite all of that - I think we still looked like a better, classier football team than West Ham.  To come out in the second half and put all of that right (well, most of it), score twice and be in complete control and then concede another goal without having killed the game off, made me feel sick to my stomach.  Eddie Howe spoke about a CL hangover, but that's not acceptable.  If this football club is ever going to achieve anything, that's not acceptable.  Good sides, classy sides, successful sides don't get themselves so excited about winning one football match that they then fail to win the next one.  No football team ever got anywhere behaving like that.  Finally, Nick Pope, undoubtedly a very good goalkeeper, but for how much longer can we risk his bullshit headless chicken shit and his woeful kicking?  Asset, or liability going forward?

[GhostfaceKillah]

Pope is now a real problem. His form dipped at the back end of last season but he had the surgery hanging over him so I gave him a pass on the basis it was linked to that. I thought he was excellent in pre-season post surgery, and just assumed he was back to his best. This season though I think he has cost us big goals, I think his feet look slow, both with the ball at them (nothing new) but also when he is positioning himself to save a shot, something I don't remember seeing being a real problem last season. He has started to cost us big goals in important matches and I don't think it will have gone unnoticed with the coaching staff. His distrubition with the ball at his feet is the worst I have season from any keeper this season so we can't build properly from the back, and I have my heart in my mouth every time we pass backwards, even when he has loads of time, because I don't trust him sort his feet out quickly, or get enough height on his clearance not to pass it straight to an opposition player. His ability to play with the ball at his feet is utterly baffling for a professional footballer who will work on that in training every single day, He finds the touchline more than he finds a player, and when he does find a player when he goes long, it's usually not one of ours.

He played a massive part in getting us to where we are now and I really like the lad, who like you say Eeeeen, he is usually a good goalkeeper, but I do think a replacement next summer is going to be needed in order for us to push on.