Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Liverpool 4 West Ham 0

West Ham started with one change from Saturday with Solano in for Faubert. The first chance of the game fell to Noble who ran onto a Cole flick in the 5th minute but shot straight at Reina from twelve yards.

However that proved to be a false dawn and West Ham's one and only shot on goal in the game. Liverpool were a goal to the good within two minutes of Noble's effort. Kuyt crossed from the right wing and Torres volleyed the ball into the top of the net, right footed from around the penalty spot.

After the opening goal West Ham came back into the game for a while. In the 13th minute Boa Morte rounded Reina but his left-footed shot from the left side of the penalty area 12 yards out was cleared by Alonso. In the 20th minute Boa Morte released Cole into the penalty area but Cole was a bit slow and Skrtel nipped in to block the shot. In the 27th minute Ljungberg fed the ball forward and Cole was a little slow to react and Reina was able to rush out and put the ball out for a throw.

After that though it was all Liverpool. In the 29th minute Skrtel was the first to a Gerrard corner but his header from the front post six yards out flew over the bar. In the 37th minute Babel crossed and Steven Gerrard shot right-footed from the centre of the penalty area 12 yards out. Robert Green managed to dive and tip the ball around the post. Thirty seconds later Neill hand-balled inside the penalty area but luckily for West Ham the referee only gave a corner.

In all honesty West Ham were fortunate to reach the break only a goal down.

In the second half West Ham managed a little period of possession without creating any chances. In the 60th minute Liverpool did create a chance through Kuyt who crossed for Torres who headed home Liverpool's second goal from 6 yards.

With West Ham finding themselves two goals down Curbishley made the brave attacking decision of bringing on Spector for Upson. Torres responded to this by almost getting his hat-trick. In the 66th minute he dived onto a cross from the right wing played behind the West Ham defence and his header hit the post and then bounced across the goal before Green finally picked it up.

In the 69th minute Zamora and Ashton were finally brought on for Cole and Solano. Not that it made any difference. In the 80th minute Torres nutmegged Neill in the box and beat Green from 6 yards for his hat-trick. Two minutes later Gerrard received the ball 30 yards out and was allowed to ghost forward unchallenged and shoot from 20 yards to make it 4-0.

In all honesty West Ham were fortunate to reach the end only four goals down.

8 Comments:

At 9:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Boring Boring West Ham!!! ...

Thats it! Our season is over, battered by the chelscum and now this, well west ham fought well, but is it only me that can see lucas neill shld be dropped! got a silly yellow card and he didnt get his man on the second goal all the defenders shouted at him after the second went in, liverpool played down thier left wing all game and neill cldnt cope!

Plus what did curbs expect, when u play boa morte was i cant remember when he scored last and ok calrton cole good effort, but 1 goal in 13 games, he then put zamora and ashton on after 70mins 2 nil down already!

Heard the west ham fans singing boring boring west ham, curbs can blame injuries and then say i want to have a stable season, if so, at least play some youngsters they wernt even on the bench!!

Im afraid curbs out, poor buys and a ok to poor season. plus he never saved us the fans did they almost forced him to put Green back in goal and tevez to start, it has to be the same again, we cant have 1 up front, need 4-4-2

curbs is boring and now is losing!, im goin shite hart lane, but im not expecting anything! read the newham recorder the predicted 3-1 spuds, im thinkin more like 4 nil

 
At 10:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

that liverpool were really on form
isn t an excuse. obviously upson coming off injured didn t help- you knew we d concede more as soon as he came off. But again, no excuse for conceding 4 goals.

all of torres' goals were from approx 12 yards out. how did the guy have that much space ,that often? I agree on Neill-anytime he comes up against quality opposition ,he seems to get beat-it s either conceding a penalty,getting needless bookings,or simply getting done for
pace.

16 corners to our 3. 11 shots on target to our 2. we created very little,which just put our back 4 under constant pressure.

you can point to cole having only one goal in 13 games. but to me the real issue is that the TEAM has scored only twice in the last 5 matches. Time to go to a 4-4-2 ,as the 4-5-1 is past its sell by date at the moment. The difficult question is which 2 to play up front- due to zamora and ashton being unable to last 90 minutes ,perhaps we ve got to use 4 different strikers in each game now.

10 games to go. it s not too late for us to turn things around. but that requires curbishley being realistic enough to accept that things need to be changed. significantly. and quickly. and that might even include giving sears a chance,because at the minute ,forget about scoring,we re not even creating chances.

 
At 10:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

imho, we have not been given any chances and then we have not made any chances.

i would say that it is really bad luck to have to go from playing the #3 team in the league to having to play the #4 team in the league -plus- that team having one of the best strikers in the league.

as for the formation, maybe this coach has his reasons; however, i don't understand why torres was not defended more vigorously nor why he could not start the game with two strikers.

 
At 10:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

yes ,it wasn t ideal to face two top 4 opponents within four days.
As ugly as it is to suffer defeats like this ,perhaps this is what will finally convince curbishley that he has GOT to play 2 strikers upfront now.

 
At 11:47 PM, Blogger Keir Clarke said...

To be fair to Neill. I saw Babel giving the Bolton right back a torrid time on Saturday. Knowing Neill's lack of pace I thought he would need someone like Bowyer in front of him. I don't think Solano was ever really going to help him defensively.

I wouldn't want to be Curbs if West Ham don't show up against Sp~@s.

 
At 8:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i feel that regarding neill ,the problem this season is that what happened at anfield has not been a one-off. there have been a number of games where he simply has seemed a yard off the pace, but i take your point, that though solano adds creativity in attack, he isn t going to provide a lot of protection to neill. it s a real dilemma because if goals aren t going to come from our striker(s) at the minute ,they have got to come from midfield. which means you need your more creative midfielders on the pitch,even if there is risk in that defensively.
what bothers me most about what s going on with neill is that he is capable of playing so much better than this. we ve seen it when he was at blackburn, and we ve seen it last season for us.

agree that as much as the result, the performance is critical at white hart lane- if we fail on both counts i think that the pressure would be mounting on curbishley ,regardless of the fact that we re on 40 points. the owner did not invest in west ham for it to be a 10th or 11th place club,and he will not look favorably upon a finish below 55 points. his expectation wud have been that the club already be in a position to at least give the likes
of chelsea and liverpool a game,despite our injuries, and we haven t gotten near that .

there was an interview with leroy lita on sky last nite about hi sloan move to charlton. questions have to be asked ,given our injuries up front, why west ham did not manage to secure the services of lita on a loan basis in the january window. he had 14 goals last term and surely wud have been of some value to us. and teh cost of a loan deal wud have been reasonable. that we failed to do this is disturbing. the excuse of problems with the icelandic banking system and the credit crunch is not acceptable, as it simply wu dnot have cost that much to have him on loan for 4 months

 
At 9:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

keir-

is the problem with the news section that s normally in white just temporary?

 
At 10:19 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

does anyone know the status on gabbidon? we ve heard precious little from the club on his recovery. this is not the first time this term that the club has not communicated that well on the status of injured players,with zamora being an obvious example. much as i like spector because he s a grafter and is only 21 and will improve with experience ,we cud obviously do with gabbidon s pace and skill shud upson not recover by sunday .

 

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