Curbs in Foot Shooting Mission
Alan Curbishley has told West Ham fans that they should be more 'realistic' and that defensive boring football is all they should expect. Well, he didn't quite put it like that, but Curbishley's attempts to claim that there is nothing defensive about his tactics and that he is constrained by injuries doesn't seem to have gone down too well with West Ham fans.
Here is what he said,
"You can't stop criticism and if West Ham fans are not happy then they let everyone know. That has been the nature over the years, but I haven't got to agree with it.
"Sometimes you have got to be a bit more realistic. Performances recently have not been what people wanted, but we have never gone out there negative in any game.
"I think the criticism of 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 is because people look out there, see one forward, and think it's negative, but half the Premier League are playing it - that is teams at the top and at the bottom.
"On a lot of occasions, certainly since we lost [Craig] Bellamy and [Bobby] Zamora, we have only had one forward left anyway. So I think you have to take it in context and be a little bit more realistic."
posted by Keir Clarke @ 1:18 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
His use of the word "realistic" is interesting,because although he feels that supporters need to be more realistic, he ALSO needs to be more realistic.
which means he needs to accept the following,without being in a state
of denial:
1- with the 4-5-1 ,particularly against the stronger defences in the league we are simply not creating chances
2- even some of the weaker defences
in the league are figuring out
how to cope with the 4-5-1,
simply because as curbishley
himself admits ,so many clubs
are using the system. there is
nothing unusual anymore in
playing such a system,or no
element of surprise in deploying
it.
3- the criticism comes not just from using the 4-5-1 , which to be
fair, has been effective for part
of the season. it comes from playing too many long balls, or balls in the air,rather than getting it on the ground and passing it.
4- prior to the icelandic takeover,
west ham was very dependent on money it got from supporters,and i m not just referring to the bond scheme. so given what suppporters
have contributed financially to the club ,for decades, supporters
have a right to voice the concerns.
true,curbishley does not have to agree with the views of supporters.
but fans are well within their rights to voice how they feel.
5- obviously you can point to the
lack of availability of zamora and
bellamy. notice that he didn t even mention ashton ,which shows that he accepts that ashton is either too unfit,or simply doesn t work with well cole. but he ignores the fact that we CAN and HAVE played 4-4-2 with either Boa Morte or Ljungberg. we did it for part of the match at stamford bridge with a degree of success.
curbishley is playing a high stakes game here.if he wants to risk antagonizing supporters, he s going to need results to back it up. if he gets results,and performances,then nobody can argue with him. but in the absence of that he d do better to keep shtum
and keep his thoughts about the views of supporters to himself.
nuzzle, no no probably in need of a muzzle.
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