[Archived] West Ham United 2-1 Our beloved rovers

[Rovermatt]

I'm still absolutely fuming about this result. While it was inevitable that we would lose this game (and players who haven't scored for donkeys would score), it was the manner in which we meekly surrendered that p*ssed me off. Savage is a pretty limited footballer but he never gives up the ghost and would have harried their midfield all day. We allowed dangerous players like Benayoun and Reo-Coker time and space to play. Yes we dominated large swathes of possession but lacked any penetration whatsoever. When West Ham broke they looked dangerous.

Notwithstanding the shafting we received for the corner prior to the second goal, we deserved nothing from yesterday's game. Disappointingly, the home side looked like they wanted it more. Our weak opposition was exactly what they needed to pull themselves from the mire.

[Presty On Tour]

fairplay sundays defeat was shocking!

marks out of 10

friedel(7) his mind really was not 100% on the game with his wife due to give birth, made some good saves though and didn't have much chance with the goals.

gray(2) awful, not premiership standard imo, how many times did he get caught out, skinned and beaten in the air. should of started jay.

zurab(7) exposed for the sheringham goal, missed a chance from a corner, average performance.

ooijer(7) great tackle on etherington by the touchline, kept zamora quiet.

neill(6) below par imo, we missed bert mk 2 down the right!!!

bentley(7) took his goal well, quiet game though by his standards.

peter(7) done well though wasteful with some set pieces. the young lad tried hard.

axe(3) awful in the middle, was running around without a clue. cant pass 10 yards and had a mare all game.

tugay(8) class act again, our best player by a mile.

benni(7) great turns, flicks and movement. needs a better strike partner.

roberts(4) didn't do alot before getting injured.

jeffers(4) done ok in some periods but didn't look up for it and missed his chance at the end, could have been a hero.

gallagher(6) done well comming off the bench, caused a few problems and should of started the game.

jay(5) didn't have alot to do but should of played instead of gray.

with gamst, reid, nelsen, bert mk 2, roberts, nonda out injured and with savage susspended, we looked well under strengthed though should of won with 15 attempts on goal.

give derbyshire and gallagher their chances in the side, its time to play the youth.

Edited October 30, 2006 by jansenpresty10@wales

[G Somerset Rover]

Rovers.co.uk say that Roberts injury will keep him out for 3-4 months....similar time to Reidy and Nelsen then.

[den]

Den, thats a gross exaggeration. We finished sixth last year and we clearly have a lot of quality. Freidal, Neill, Nelsen, Emerton, Ooijer, Savage, Reid, Nonda, Tugay, McCarthy and Roberts are all clearly top half Premiership players. Zurab and Pedersen are decent.

And the youngsters are coming through. Bentley is quality, Gallagher has class, Peter looks good, Brown showed style in his cameo a few weeks back.

We have as good a set of players as any team outside the big four, Newcastle and Tottenham. We cannot win every game.

We were a long long way from being a bad side today. A long way. And we were missing five of our best players.

If we go down i will eat 50 hats. I will be amazed if we don't finish in the top half.

You misunderstand me JBN.

We do have a squad of quality players, no argument there. We have a GREAT squad of players considering the size of the town and the finances available. Those finances have been used wisely by Hughes.

The point I'm making is this: should we have a small squad that will suffer tremendously when long term injuries arrive, or should we have a bigger squad of players who aren't in the same league as some of the players already here, but could possibly ride the injury situation a bit better?

It's no good us complaining that the present squad isn't big enough, we don't have the finances to have two squads of prem quality.

[Paul Mellelieu]

Good post, as usual, Scotty.

Rover 6 wide of the mark again with Mokoena. He's excellent when we need to defend lead in a five.

[LeftWinger]

I suspect we wont see Gray in a rovers shirt again.

2-0 down and he's replaced by another left back. I think that says it all really.

I thought that at the time. But there weren't any other attacking options left on the bench.

[blue phil]

Rovers.co.uk say that Roberts injury will keep him out for 3-4 months....similar time to Reidy and Nelsen then.

Good news for Gallagher then to prove his worth . I'd have him higher up the pegging order than Roberts and Jeffers anyway .

[pleasure]

Good news for Gallagher then to prove his worth . I'd have him higher up the pegging order than Roberts and Jeffers anyway .

apart from falling asleep at the corner, i thought gally did alright yesterday. he'll get his chance in the coming weeks and i wouldnt be suprised if derbyshire makes the bench also.

[Hughesy]

From our 1st choice team – we had Nelsen, Reid, Pedersen, Savage, Emerton and Nonda missing. Now going off last season the 1st 4 were our best 4 players (Excluding bellamy).

Add to that we then lost our 3rd choice striker early on.

Now a few things I hate on this board are the amount of people who praise Gallagher – He was poor yesterday AS ALWAYS. Andy Gray even slated him for not making runs to the back post when the ball came in from the left and also he was at fault for their 2nd goal. Now how was that a good performance? He is poor and if he wants to prove himself then he needs to start putting the effort in when given the chance!

Mokoena wasn’t as bad as some people make out – he was the one in the middle who was closing people down. I read somewhere above that Tugay was Class? When? His passing yesterday was terrible, especially for the 1st 60 minutes.

Gray is crap and always has been and therefore Jay should be given his chance there.

As for slating Peter like some people are – its crazy! He put in as much effort as anybody yesterday and it was obvious that he was causing a nuisance of himself as he made himself a hate figure with the West Ham fans, he was up for the battle! Now tell me in a game like that would Pedersen of shown himself as much? I doubt it very much!

As for their 1st goal, yes you can try and blame people but Teddy Sheringham is class at what he does and he has done it against all the best defences for years. Once he started to move towards the box it was obvious what was going to happen.

The problem yesterday was we lacked a little creativity, missed too many key players (Especially Savage and Nonda) and also our delivery into the box wasn’t good enough.

[thenodrog]

The rest though are just not up to it. Gray's finished, Mokoena's a great defensive midfielder in a five but can't play in a 4-4-2,

Agree with all that scottyy but maybe with injuries to 2 of our 4 strikers and a disfunctional midfield it may necessitate a return to 4-5-1 for certain games.

Good news for Gallagher then to prove his worth . I'd have him higher up the pegging order than Roberts and Jeffers anyway .

Eh?

1. He doesn't play in their position.

2. Why has nobody offered millions for him then?

Gally is a one trick pony. He can pass well and after that he is short of pace and power and worst of all he lacks EFFORT. When he is asked to put that little bit of graft in he goes awol. At Lpool he was subbed late on when we were hanging on for a point and for me Hughes could have taken him off and left us with 10 men for all the use he was.

If we had paid money and brought him into the team from another club I cannot see people being as patient with him.

[joey_big_nose]

You misunderstand me JBN.

We do have a squad of quality players, no argument there. We have a GREAT squad of players considering the size of the town and the finances available. Those finances have been used wisely by Hughes.

The point I'm making is this: should we have a small squad that will suffer tremendously when long term injuries arrive, or should we have a bigger squad of players who aren't in the same league as some of the players already here, but could possibly ride the injury situation a bit better?

It's no good us complaining that the present squad isn't big enough, we don't have the finances to have two squads of prem quality.

I don't see why we cannot have a slightly larger squad and maintain the same standard of players in the first Xi. Financially we are well enugh off to afford two more players (almost undoubtably a CM and a left back)who would go straight into the starting sixteen at least. How do I know this? We bid for Dunn at the end of August to the tune of two or three million and if you add up our incomings and outgoings we look to have 3-6 million to spend on players.

Those two players would transform us to looking ragged and threadbare to being well covered. Crazy old game, eh?

We do need to shift Matteo and Todd though to make space on the wage bill.

Damn the transfer window (or Hughsy's lack of urgency in August?), otherwise we would have those new players now.

[3rdpillar]

I was there that night (Berg scored as well) and believe me there was no were near 4,000 there.

I second that!.. I remember that night as i was pinned in the pub, just by the market, by West Ham Gollilas...

made a run for it, straight into the path of the local plod.....close shave!

Edited October 30, 2006 by 3rdpillar

[Neil Weaver]

Agree with all that scottyy but maybe with injuries to 2 of our 4 strikers and a disfunctional midfield it may necessitate a return to 4-5-1 for certain games.

Agreed about the 4-5 bit theno, but who would you suggest for the 1? The only way I could see it working is to drop Benni back to be an attacking mid, but to be convinced that would work.

[CAPT KAYOS]

Well despite the nailed on defeat that 95% of Rovers supporters knew would happen (I plumped for a draw hoping) just a few pointers that we seem to be missing.

As we all know we where missing key players yet we controlled most of the game. Now no TEAM will function straight away so I feel afew comments are a lttle knee jerk due to the circumstances as there was a change to the team so effectively this became a new unit. As we all know time is needed for it to gel and become efficient which is why I feel people need to think about this before criticising to heavily as they need to be given a chance.

As pointed out after the Bolton game my worry was conceding freely headed goals -and yet again we fell sucker punch to another headed goal - the third in a run in League games which yet again cost us points - 8 now in three games.

In addition, my comments re our lack of ruthfullness has yet again been to our detriment - you can have as much possesion as you want but you need to do something with the ball.

As a cerrtain god (GARNER) said yesterday - it was our own silly mistakes, lack of not closing down and the final ball that cost us yesterday - something that to me has been quite obvious in the last couple of games.

This is what we need to get sorted.

[Tango]

I only caught the second half, but watched it in the pub with a hammers fan and he was very complimentary about McCarthy and Ooijer. From what I saw we looked the better side but our final ball from both sides of the pitch was weak to say the least. Bad decision for the corner too.

[speeeeeeedie]

I watched the game on Fox with Sky's boxing commentator giving us a history of West Ham for 90 minutes. It was bad to listen to, but they were the story not Rovers. The vast majority of us predicted a loss, probably the most accurate total ever, but it's still a kick in the teeth after watching it.

As usual I have my own views that conlfict with some on here. Michael Gray was very sub par, defensively he was very shaky and never helped our attack with his constant long ball tactics. Peter worked very hard but didn't look to have that bit extra a winger needs to make it at the top, maybe a run of games could help (it was said on TV that MGP wasn't injured just dropped- it sounded like someone had been reading the MGP hides thread). Tugay wasn't up to scratch either, probably because Mokoena didn't give him much help.

I'm not blaming Mokoena for Sheri's goal. Watch the reply, Teddy's run was great, he completely took Mokoena out of the equation. He might be 40 but he's a clever sod. The second goal should be the one we are complaining about, not because it should have been a goal kick; that doesn't excuse bad defending. It's now 3 goals in 3 games conceded off corners, that smells of either a lack of coaching or a lack of application; most likely the latter. We have lost 8 points because of it. (I didn't read Capt's post before writing this).

Zurab needs to grow an inch, it glanced off his head backwards to create the first and he flicked it on for Mullins to score.

Ooijer played very well.

Edited October 30, 2006 by speeeeeeedie

[Hughesy]

I would also like to add that I thought Ooijer played very well and has done for the last few games. He is getting better and better. Another good signing!

We just need to get some of our absentees fit and quick!

As for Peter, in his 1st premier league game of the season I think he did very well. His confidence will grow as he plays more 1st team games. He put far more effort in than several senior members did!

As for Gallagher I think that if they gave him a try in central midfield then they would find that it would be more suited to his play. He has the ability to pick passes and he is a big enough lad to put himself about. Just a shame he hasn’t shown it so far!

[RevidgeBlue]

We're definitely suffering from the lack of investment in the team over the last couple of years since Hughes came to Ewood Park, not only has he not had a penny to spend in net terms, I think he's about 1.5m up in the black after selling Kuqi!!! He's worked miracles on what he has or rather hasn't had available to him but there's only so much you can do if you hit a particularly bad run of injuries.

The crux of the problem is that we can just about cope with the loss of either Savage or Reid in midfield but certainly not both of them at the same time. The lack of depth in midfield was highlighted by many including myself in the summer, and i think it's already a season too far for Tugay. Instead of looking to offer him yet another deal we need to be looking at who will eventually replace him and, painful though it might be to the Board, this will cost money. Mokoena's position at the club must now be tenuous- he's shown that he isn't up to playing anywhere in the side other than mopping up as part of a five man midfield.

Up front the injury to Roberts couldn't have happened at a worse time, with Nonda also sidelined. Whilst Jeffers is capable of very neat build up play I've seen nothing from him to suggest that he still has the quickness of thought or physical sharpness to find the back of the net. Another make do and mend option which hasn't come off.

Elsewhere I actually thought Gray played quite well and we looked much more threatning once Gallagher came on down the right for the last few minutes. Quite what he has to do to earn a chance I'm not sure. But it was all far too little too late in the end.

As many have said, with our first choice eleven on parade including Nelsen, Savage, Reid, MGP and Nonda/Roberts we're more than a match for anyone. Unfortunately a number of fringe players haven't stepped up to the plate over the last week. Whether the Trustees can or should provide Hughes with more funding is probably a debate for another day. And I'm sure we'll be fine when one or two injury absentees return. Suffice to say though I wouldn't be confident of us getting a result against anyone if both Reid and Savage were out.

Edited October 30, 2006 by RevidgeBlue

[Mr Maureen]

The football media all week have been in a state of panic over the serious state of affairs on the pitch at West

Ham.Talk sport dedicated 3 hours of airtime on Thursday evening to the worrying situation at Upton park.

Match of the day 2 last night, West Ham v Rovers post match studio comments this is how it went.

"Blowing bubbles,Teddy Sheringham,Emotional,Pardew,Fantastic fans,Hurst Peters Moore,Blowing

bubbles,Upton park,First goal,Unsettling the team,Chesterfield,East end,Second goal,A little bit choked,

Immense pressure,First win in 12,Blowing bubbles,Ron Greenwood,Drop zone,40 year old,Blowing bubbles"

No mention of Blackburn Rovers nothing.

[Scotty]

I actually thought Gray played quite well

[pleasure]

No mention of Blackburn Rovers nothing.

was the same of SKY. rovers werent mentioned until 3:45! the panel was balanced aswell---

with hartson and "i spoke to my dad.." redknapp.

SKY's gone really sh.ite over the past few years.

[Hughesy]

I hope that in January the club bring in either that Norwegian fella who was linked in summer (Pedersen’s mate) or David Dunn.

After the transfer window it was key that we didn’t lose 2 of the 3 midfield men of Savage, Tugay and Reid. Unfortunately we have lost 1 long term, savage has picked up a few niggles and Tugay cant play 90 minutes, game after game!

As for Gallagher – what more could he of done??? For a start he could have stuck with Hayden Mullins from the corner and therefore stopped us from conceding the 2nd goal!

[Walls]

I suspect we wont see Gray in a rovers shirt again.

2-0 down and he's replaced by another left back. I think that says it all really.

I would say that Gray went off because it was such a physical miss-match between hime and Harewood. You could argue that the match was already lost by then but either Hughes wanted to limit the damage or thought we could still get something out of the game.

As to all those who complained about Jeffers. I thought he looked very good again yesterday. He has impressed me on both of his last 2 appearances - this and against Wigan I think. Fortunately for him I think he may now get the run in the side that he needs to as a result of the injury to Roberts. It will be interesting to see how he does. I feel he needs a goal sharpish though before his confidence goes. The other question is though can he play with Macarthy?

[gumboots]

was the same of SKY. rovers werent mentioned until 3:45! the panel was balanced aswell---

with hartson and "i spoke to my dad.." redknapp.

SKY's gone really sh.ite over the past few years.

Lack of a creditable opposition. They can basically say what they want and do as they want because they dominate football coverage in this country. When you hear what they charge the BBC and other stations just to show clips from games they cover you realise the ridiculous situation that has been allowed to develop in this country. We need a more level playing field and more competition then we might just get a better, less biased coverage.

[Rovermatt]

was the same of SKY. rovers werent mentioned until 3:45! the panel was balanced aswell---

with hartson and "i spoke to my dad.." redknapp.

SKY's gone really sh.ite over the past few years.

Redknapp is a moron. While clearly a nice guy, he really fancies himself as a pundit and has a severe case of verbal diarrhoea. On a number of occassions yesterday he showed off his fancy new phrase: 'applicate'. Now when I was at a school, the proper verb was 'apply' but seemingly Sky has resolved to create an entirely new footballing dictionary.