West Ham 0-3 Post Mortem

[Col city fan]

Just now, StriderHiryu said:

Mendy comes into the side instead. He doesn't make anywhere near as many tackles, but is better on the ball so can sometimes be better against teams that sit back and play a deep block because it gives us better quality possession.

 

Today for the first 60 we only had two midfielders instead of the usual 3 so didn't have a numerical advantage there. We still dominated possession but we weren't capable of making any chances with any of that possession as the wingbacks had to go up 1 vs 1 against the West Ham wingbacks and we didn't have wide players ahead of them to help them out or create 2v1 situations out wide.

Our midfield was one of the main reasons imo we looked appalling today.

We were bullied physically and showed so little creatively

This gave Vardy the fewest touches of any player in the game and put our defence under a lot of pressure

We need a stronger midfield if we are to continue playing like this particularly against the physically ‘big’ sides

[SouthStandUpperTier]

2 minutes ago, splinterdream said:

In your opinion, as Crouchy said we needed something different than vardy up front, we needed to create space and give them something to think about and clearly Under wasn't that was he? We had 2 strikers to aim at and we were struggling to pass the ball through them so we needed to get behind them, the times Barnes and vardy did that we looked most of a threat

I like Albrighton. Always will. But this isn't 2015/16 anymore. We no longer play a style that suits his strengths. He would have had negligible impact on the game.

[foxes_rule1978]

2 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Our midfield was one of the main reasons imo we looked appalling today.

We were bullied physically and showed so little creatively

This gave Vardy the fewest touches of any player in the game and put our defence under a lot of pressure

We need a stronger midfield if we are to continue playing like this particularly against the physically ‘big’ sides

Suppose having 3 of our midfielders out didn’t help much either 

[Crazy Kop Corner]

17 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

West Ham didnt play how we wanted them to. Football hasn't been fair to us. 

Absolutely this - they consistently lamped the ball into our penalty area accurately playing to their strengths and our weaknesses - it definitely was not cricket - I expect Lineker to be furious - furrowed brow a la Mica Richards at the very least.

[AKCJ]

Move on safe in the knowledge that we won't play that badly for another decade.

[st albans fox]

2 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Our midfield was one of the main reasons imo we looked appalling today.

We were bullied physically and showed so little creatively

This gave Vardy the fewest touches of any player in the game and put our defence under a lot of pressure

We need a stronger midfield if we are to continue playing like this particularly against the physically ‘big’ sides

But it was so predictable col - many commented in the pre match thread that this was the concern - to Take a body out of that midfield was an astonishing decision 

[turtmcfly]

1 minute ago, st albans fox said:

But it was so predictable col - many commented in the pre match thread that this was the concern - to Take a body out of that midfield was an astonishing decision 

 

...and put it in defense, a decision which would only make sense if we were shit scared of one player. Judging by the first goal, Rodgers must have just taken it as read our centre-backs knew who that player was.

[lcfcell]

just move on, West Ham were well drilled and fair play. Injuries really haven’t helped us either 

[nnfox]

4 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Our midfield was one of the main reasons imo we looked appalling today.

We were bullied physically and showed so little creatively

This gave Vardy the fewest touches of any player in the game and put our defence under a lot of pressure

We need a stronger midfield if we are to continue playing like this particularly against the physically ‘big’ sides

Vardy virtually always has the fewest numbers of touches. 

 

West Ham were just better than us.  Today.

[5waller5]

47 minutes ago, ScrumpyJack said:

  

 

Not buying this anti-Rodgers agenda at all.

 

Soyuncu and Evans did not perform; what is Rodgers meant to do? Employ Danny Ward as an emergency centre back? We struggled making cutting passes to feed Vardy, probably because Maddison and Praet are both injured, Tielemans having to play deeper due to the defence's weakness stopped him from properly influencing the game - which he has struggled to do consistently for some time.

 

The players are accountable for this, just as they were accountable for the win last week. The Rodgers hate train is pathetic and is seemingly symptomatic of our success in recent years. We had a bad game, we move on.

 

I don't think it's either of those things - it's simply criticism of his tactics today - which I'd agree were woeful.

 

In terms of struggling to make cutting edge passes .... We shouldn't need to rely on them, we should have played a 451 formation, overloading the wings and forcing WH's players out of position. Instead we matched their formation, and made it easy for their game plan of 10 men behind the ball successful, by trying to play through the middle.

 

Manager's are paid £millions to get this right, 90% of Foxestalk would have been screaming at their TV at Brendan - it wasn't a tactical masterclass by Moyes and was simple to gain the upper hand over.

 

[Matt]

22 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

There is an argument that moving the ball around in your own half releases space in between the lines as it stops the game becom8ng too compressed and we tend to look good when we start moving forward with some pace BUT that relies on the opposition wanting to press high and West Ham wouldn’t make that error 

Agreed.

 

I 100% agree with the logic of playing around your own half meaning/hoping the opposition come at you allowing space to move up but imo it rarely happens, it rarely works, I find it incredibly boring and it often creates mistakes allowing the opposition in, this is my issue with how we've played in this new style.

 

As I keep saying admitedly we didn't create much today, we didn't score and we ultimately lost so I can't say how we played today (Or so far this season) is better than playing aimless possession football however if we get our creativity sorted (Easier said than done - whilst equally relying on opposition to be not quite so solid - However i'm in danger of sounding like Pep/Man City there - Again, as I keep saying, fair play to West Ham for being that solid, it's part of the game) I know which would be more enjoyable, exciting and productive to watch.

 

I've often asked for us to have a plan B, not just aimlessly pass side to side and backards, it looks like we are finally tying more strings to our bow, playing in different ways, if we can just change it up during games now!

 

 

Edited 4 October 2020 by Matt

[Deeg67]

For all the things that were awful today starting with the setup, I think it made it pretty clear that Praet was the MVP of the first three games.

[splinterdream]

9 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

I like Albrighton. Always will. But this isn't 2015/16 anymore. We no longer play a style that suits his strengths. He would have had negligible impact on the game.

When we play a certain style, teams set up against that and we have no plan b. We did indeed get Leicestered today, West ham did to us exactly what we did to man City.

[Dahnsouff]

11 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Our midfield was one of the main reasons imo we looked appalling today.

We were bullied physically and showed so little creatively

This gave Vardy the fewest touches of any player in the game and put our defence under a lot of pressure

We need a stronger midfield if we are to continue playing like this particularly against the physically ‘big’ sides

Actually disagree. We were just too reliant on Youri, and without Dennis and James, we were painfully predictable. Mendy is great at break up play, but he cannot play incisive balls like both Praet and Maddison are able to do.

 

And for Gods sake, it is not illegal to play short corners against giants, or to shoot from the edge of the area.

[Kasey Keller]

Bid 30m for Antonio 

[Guest Fktf]

Its days like today I wish we had a plan b. You could see we were never going to pass through them second half.

[Chocolate Teapot]

1 minute ago, Kasey Keller said:

Bid 30m for Antonio 

As silly as it sounds I think Haller would be a really option for us. Was excellent at Frankfurt.

[RowlattsFox]

1 minute ago, Kasey Keller said:

Bid 30m for Antonio 

We could, and probably will, do a hell of a lot worse. But again his biggest assets probably don't help us at home. 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

Just now, Kasey Keller said:

Bid 30m for Antonio 

He's worth more than £30m to West Ham. And I don't think he fits BR's style.

[Nick]

1 hour ago, Jon the Hat said:

Our best defender is unfit, our best right back is injured, we sold our best left back and the replacement hasn’t made the step up.

He has it’s just that he’s playing on the right at the moment! 

[ARM1968]

Utter bobbins and unfortunately a quintessential piece of Rodgers management. These games show his flaws so vividly it is hard to understand why he still cannot see it. 
 

We won the league with no possession to speak of and thrashed Man City doing the same. West Ham just didn’t the same to us, let us have the ball and punished us on the break. 
 

We are not good enough to beat teams who set up like this simply by dominating possession. Rodgers needs to adapt and approach each game as a separate challenge. I just don’t think he can. He is a decent manager but will never be top tier - despite top tier wages. 

[Danny Clender]

21 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Two main points today for me:

 

1. We played today, at home, against an improving side, but let’s face it, most of us thought we’d win... and had not a single shot on target all game

2. WTF did Rodgers bring out the SAME team, and the SAME formation for the second half?

 

Both points above... criminal really 

This is, perhaps, one of the biggest thing that winds up fans.

From my amateur armchair it was obvious the formation was not working after 20 minutes. 

There is no shame in changing this immediately, he waited until Amartey went off injured.

It's not my entire blame, but it takes up a big enough portion of it. 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Danny Clender said:

This is, perhaps, one of the biggest thing that winds up fans.

From my amateur armchair it was obvious the formation was not working after 20 minutes. 

There is no shame in changing this immediately, he waited until Amartey went off injured.

It's not my entire blame, but it takes up a big enough portion of it. 

The required change was a second creative midfielder, but we do not have a fit one. Still would have put Hamza on for Daniel personally 

[foxinsocks]

18 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

Move on safe in the knowledge that we won't play that badly for another decade.

Since the boutmrnliuth game... about one evet 5 games then 

[Rigga]

Thought Mendy was our best player today. Broke the play up well and worked extremely hard..

The only real positive from an awful performance that stood alongside our run in last season..
Hope Pérez never puts on a lcfc shirt again... we just get nothing from him.. Another £30m wasted. 

How quickly you can fall from cloud nine following last weeks result