Another night of away disappointment for the Hammers has a few of us questioning how things are at Upton Park right now. Certainly post Dublin/Wally Downes, things have not been right and you have to start asking why, but at the same time, keeping some perspective. We need to remind ourselves we have only just come up from the Championship and this time last season we were reeling from a 5-1 defeat at Ipswich and we all thought promotion was another season away. Additionally, we are still in 13th, and therefore in a better position to pull ourselves away than most, but we better start soon.
Onto last night, and a game we should have gone all guns blazing for and won turned out to be the reverse. In Berbatov, Fulham have a striker that we just could not deal with, he was the gulf in class between us and I’m happy not for us to face him again.
As for our lads, there were very mixed performances. On the plus side, Diame didn’t look like a player who was leaving, he was excellent. Noble ran and ran, Reid was mostly solid and Carroll looked hungry as ever when he came on. On the downside is James Tomkins – Tomka seems like a good lad but his current form is poor and he is not looking like an assured player in the slightest. I would not be surprised if he was dropped for Saturday and Pogatetz came in instead, as we need some serious shoring up at the back. I also wish Demel would have a bit more confidence going forward, he seems to get himself in a good position then seems uncertain what to do and unwilling to try and beat them.
I also want to talk about Matt Jarvis – for some reason there seems to be people very quick to criticise him, but I think most of the danger we create comes through him. It’s the lack of an end product that is the concern, once the forwards start scoring, I hope people will see his value as I think he is a decent winger. Look at his cross for header Nolan missed last night as a perfect example.
Finally, it’s transfer deadline day – I’m sure we’ve done most of our business, but I imagine a move for Paul Robinson and possibly another defender will be on the cards. I reckon Ollson will be ours by the end of the day, if learned anything from last night it’s that we need something there….
Good to read a well written blog that can comment on our problems without the OTT, near suicidal negativity.
Posted by: PS | 31/01/2013 at 11:25
Good balanced article but I do think we are lacking a natural finisher and it concerns me that we haven't addressed that matter properly, ie someone like Darren Bent. We are not scoring enough and although we know we can shore up the defence a la earlier this season we need to be more prolific up front and I question what we have being able to do so. That being said I do think we will be alright.
Posted by: JMan43 | 31/01/2013 at 11:36
Think we need to get things into prospective. Last night their first goal was offside, we had two penalty appeals turned down - Nolan scored a very good goal - unlucky og by O'Brien - things are not going for us at the moment and hopefully Sam will keep us up. Need to get rid of those that dont want to be here so that the team is united.
Posted by: Helen | 31/01/2013 at 12:03