West Ham's Perfomance Rated
Talk of moving Premier League football abroad may be a little premature. Based on Fleet Street's assessment of West Ham and Birmingham's game yesterday there won't be many bidders to stage the EPL overseas.
The Daily Telegraph called the game 'a dismal match'. In fact they felt Birmingham 'thoroughly deserved their point' as they made 'West Ham look very ordinary'.
The Daily Mail were also unimpressed with West Ham's performance yesterday. They thought the game was 'a drab affair' in which all West Ham's 'huffing and puffing' was not enough to secure a win.
The Guardian concurred that the game 'failed to excite' and The Independent quoted Curbishley saying that the game 'fizzled out on us.' They then go on to say that Curbs may as well have been talking about West Ham's season as the game had an 'end-of-season feel to it – and we're still three months away.'
The Times felt that both teams put on 'a patchy performance' and that 'Dean Ashton, particularly, wasted chances'.
After the last two games I am reminded of Curbishley's Charlton teams that always performed well up until Christmas and then seemed to run out of steam. Presumably Curbishley would counter that argument with West Ham's run in last season. Let's hope we do have a few performances to come.
posted by Keir Clarke @ 2:09 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
for a start, i m not sure about brum "thoroughly deserving a point"
as we had the better of the chances and the better of the possession. secondly,the penalty decision could have gone either way- some refs would give that ,others wouldn t , so i feel that in a sense that was a fortuitous decision for the visitors. in saying that ,i m not excusing neill, as he s had this coming for awhile ,with his persistent fouling in the box. thirdly,although the game wasn t a thriller, to say it smacked of being "end of the season" is ludicrous, as brum are fighting for survival and we are,or were aiming for a uefa slot. any media hack worth his salt would recognize that games against relegation threatened sides will often be drab affairs as the weaker side is content to hang on for a desperately needed away point. with a one man advantage and 2 minutes plus a long stoppage period remaining,brum showed no ambition to get a winner. down to 10 men,if a winner was going to come,we looked the likelier. finally,as disppointing as the last 2 results have been ,it was only 10 days ago that we beat liverpool. so i think it s a bit early to be making comparisons to charlton. with noble ,faubertand solano to be in the side regularly again soon, there is good reason to believe the season is far from over. and that s despite a subpar ashton, and despite bellamy s return being delayed. although he wasn t alone in being below par yesterday,if ashton was playing anyhwere near his reputation,these last 2 results would have been different. conversely ,ferdinand ,upson and ljungberg all had excellent matches . disppointment ,justified disappointment is one thing. but the excessive doom and gloom served up by rags like the daily mail etc is not. typical low rent ,weak journalism. regarding a thread from a sevral days ago, neill s performance was exactly what i was worried about with these long haul trips for international trips. had neill not been jet lagged,perhaps he d have not been beaten by mcfadden. perhaps- we ll never know. but the long haul travel did him no favors ,nor west ham united . and the points dropped here,may well be what deny us a uefa slot come may. a reason to be looking ,not at a left back complement such as nicky shorey for mccartney, but a right back complement for neill in the close season. as dublin suggested here,he s entitled to pursue his international career,but if the club has european aspirations,it needs to get hold of a second genuine right back as cover in these situations
i feel bad to admit this, but i don't read any of the papers quoted except the Guardian.
as far as the Guardian's analysis of the game is concerned, it was spot on. furthermore, i think the manager and the players should accept the assessment as constructive criticism.
the second paragraph of yesterday's Hammered blog entry began with the following description: "West Ham won a corner in the first minute and Ashton had a good chance from Ljungberg's set-piece only to swing his foot at the ball and miss it completely."
yes, i would have to agree with the Guardian writer that this kind of football "FAILS TO EXCITE".
at least the writer gave credit where it was due describing the Ljungberg's goal as thunderous and West Ham's performance in the first half as ebullient. but missing so many opportunities to score a second goal...
btw: today's Guardian article described chelsea's game as "soporific" and "dire".
sorry to bother you portugal, but is there any way you could write using some paragraphs. maybe it was the heat of the moment, but...
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