West Ham Predictions

[forevaavillan1]

[Harry]

I think in football you make your own luck and I don't think we should ever describe any result as lucky. If you follow that argument WHU were lucky tonight.

I did not see the game tonight and had to rely on the delights of Radio WM commentary. Based on that my observations are:

1) We were all over them in the first half and as ever did not convert the chances. No change there as we do not have goals in the current side - see the many threads on this and other forums.

2) Beye gives away a stupid penalty and WHU score. Why was Beye playing over Luke Young?

3) Second half we get a penalty and Ashley Young takes it, seemingly forgetting that last time he took a penalty in normal time he missed which cost us a place in the Europa league. OK he redeems himself shortly afterwards with an excellent goal.

4) The game wears on and WHU come more and more into the game. Listening all I could think was that WHU would score eventually and guess what they did. I suspect it was the same old story, we get over run in midfield which pressures the defence and hey presto.

5) Beye in the mean time gets himself sent off for a second stupid challenge, the first for the penalty being entirely unnecessary.

6) The one interesting comment from the commentators which rang true with me was the absence of real options on the bench - as they said no super sub there.

Why put Gabby on the right? Surely it was much better if we insist on playing 4-4-2 to have started with Albrighton and then keep one of Gabby, Carew or Heskey to come on later. Personally if we needed a super sub it should be Gabby. Formation wise we should have played 4-5-1 anyway and started with either NRC or Delph in the middle with a lone striker.

Overall a bad bad performance as we definitely dropped one point, realistically it was three points, to a weak side who lost two of their better players to injury in the early part of the game. Fundamentally we are not much farther forward than we were last season as so far we have dropped 9 points to some of the poorest sides in the division.

We really need to bounce back come Saturday and WTF did the club organise this fixture anyway - so we have five games in two weeks?
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Aston Villa, the home of Premier League football in the Midlands.

[Rickmeister]

Watched the game as best I could on Iraqgoals and imo the game proved:

1) We have no better than a 5% chance of a top 4 finish.
2) We have a less than 50/50 chance of a top 6 finish.
3) MON is either tactically naive or inept depending on how charitable you are feeling.
4) We are above average on quality and fight but outstanding in neither area which means no success and quite possibly no Europe.

We dominated the first half, especially in corners, although Green only had a couple of decent saves to make. Again though we lacked the clinical finishing that all our top 6 competitors have.
I thought both pens were dubious but Ash's effort was pretty poor. We got lucky with Ash's goal as that was quite obviously an overhit cross.
Then West Ham, despite losing 2 key players including their main goal threat, looked the more likely side in the 2nd half. MON's use of subs was again poor imo.
We have now lost to 3 sides in the bottom half of the table and we haven't even played a third of the season. We have made 1 or 2 decent individual signings but as a team I don't think we are as good as we have been in the last 2 seasons. I think we are starting to move backwards which is worrying. I have never thought that Randy or MON would lead us to the top 4, but I think MON now has to improve his tactics significantly to stop the rot of just 6 points gained from the last 6 games.

UTV SOTC

[LeeHolteK6]

Guys guys

chill out! Watched the game live screened in Rococo. We didn't play all that badly. Our problems were sticking the ball in the net. We came close and were the better team on the night. Their pen should not of stood also Beye's first yellow. Bennett made a big mistake here and his 2nd yellow meant dismissal was also wrong. That gave them the power play to win the game.

Young's deliveries were questionable - his pen shocking ans his goal - well pure fluke from another poor delivery.

Defence? - Dunne could of given away a pen - he's dangerous he is.
Warnock - mate - stick to what you best at - it's not free kicks in goal scoring opportunities.
Reo-Joker- good effort
Sid - average
Carew - still not 100%
Gabi - marked out the game - no initiative
Petrov - solid as usual - an amazing volley
Collins- held up well - mistake in the last minute
Friedal - fair effort
Heskey - didn't even see him
Beye - unfortunate
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5-1

[canzy77]

Well, I thought this was going to be tougher than a lot of people credited, but MONs selections basically made a hard job worse.

I know I'm stating the obvious, but these are games we need to win. I made reference to the Newcastle game last year, and unfortunately the pattern of performances and results this year suggest we are no further forward than we were last year.

Momentum is a key thing, especially for Villa who have been a streaky team in the last couple of years. The forward line and wingers in our team just don't seem to have the fight in them to carry it to the opposition on a weekly basis. So I think for the rest of this season, we'll see wins against the likes of Liverpool & Chelsea followed up by draws and defeats against the likes of West Ham and Hull.