Geezer Thu 08 Mar 2012, 12:16 pm
Frustration, Sam?
Very frustrating. We haven't shown enough quality in the chances we've created or the final ball delivered to see off Watford tonight and [we] nearly paid the price for it.
The frustrating part is that we know what we want to do, we know where we want to get but at the moment we just can't find the cutting edge here at Upton Park. Obviously Watford were a very stubborn unit today and made life difficult for us but you've got to expect that. Based on the chances we've had and missed - again - it's disappointing, because if you're not clinical enough then it's always a struggle.
It nearly ended with us losing this one instead of winning the game. We haven't been like that or looked like that for a long, long time - certainly away from home. At least we had the ability and desire to claw it back to 1-1, but I really did expect us to win it from thereon especially with the nine minutes of stoppage time and the amount of pressure we were exerting on the opposition who couldn't get out of their own half. But we didn't find the killer touch yet again sadly.
So a frustrating night for us all but in the end you have to respect the point again, move on to Doncaster and make sure we get three on Saturday.
Is it the strikers who are to blame?
Well one of our strikers scored to get us back in the game today. But yet again some of the chances didn't fall to our strikers; Mark Noble in the first half, Julien Faubert at the far post... Carlton Cole, to be fair; the cross came in from Vaz Te, [it was] just a sidefoot in [but] he completely missed it. Balls that dropped down in the box... Sam Baldock [or] whoever's there, they've got to lash them in the back of the net. Shooting from outside the box, making sure you hit the target...
I've just had a look at their goal and I thought it went straight in, but it's typical of a night like this. They've hit a speculative shot and it's actually going nowhere in terms of causing us any trouble, but it's deflected off Abdoulaye Faye and gone in off the post. Then you start wondering whether it's going to be one of those nights, of course. But to be fair to the lads at least we came back with a vengeance, changed the system again to a 4-3-3 instead of a 4-4-2 and got back into a winning position from where we should never have been but were.
Your problems do seem to be at home - you don't have them away from home?
In the last two games, yeah. In the two games previous we drew with Southampton with ten men and we beat Millwall with ten men after eight minutes. In those terms we were f***ing magnificent! Recently we've turned that magnificent home form into frustrating results.
But it boils down to sticking the ball in the back of the net; it eases the anxiety and it eases the pressure on everybody. We go away from home... we beat Blackpool 4-1, we beat Cardiff 2-0. Cardiff could have been beaten by three or four nil. What we've got to do at home is the same as we do away and be as good and clinical as we are.
But yet again, it entices the opposition on to you when they're playing at home and their responsibility is to attack you; they leave a lot more space for us to exploit. When people come here they're going to sit with two banks of four, like Watford did today, and frustrate you. We've got to be able to cope with it and make sure we overcome it.
Is it a psychological blow that you haven't gone top?
It's a psychological blow for us because we could have won this game, gone back on top of this league and got closer to two points a game which is our target. Forget the position in the league, it's nice to be at the top but our target is two points per game. If we had won today we'd have been one point off two points a game - and if we beat Doncaster [this weekend], do the first nine point week, we're right back where we want to be. Now we've dropped behind again.
Our position in the league is not as important to me as making sure we get two points a game, because I know what two points per game gives us. And you know don't you, because you've heard me say it enough! Automatic promotion.
Do you see Reading being as serious contenders as Southampton for the top two now?
Absolutely. I wish we could go on a run like Reading! They've had the best run in the league from... maybe Southampton early doors might have matched it in the first ten games, but Reading in the last ten or twelve have taken 33 points out of 39, haven't they? It's a fantastic run of games.
Birmingham went 15 without defeat but have found that a little difficult to keep up. Brighton are back on track. Somebody will always come up from the pack and challenge you, what you've got to do is get back to the old boring two points per game again. You won't have to worry about that then.
You mentioned anxiety; do you think there is anxiety in the team?
There's always anxiety when you want to go out and win a game of football, you don't get to where you want to get. What you must do is not get frustrated with it, be patient, use your abilities and superior skills to overcome the opposition and the way they're trying to frustrate you. You do that by taking your chances if and when they come along - and what we aint good at is taking our chances.
If we'd have had [Ricky] Lambert in our team we’d have won the Championship already. We haven't got one person with ten goals yet, that's the key element missing. We're second in the league without anybody scoring ten so that's a magnificent achievement from some of the squad in terms of the lack of goal efficiency that we knew we'd have to show - and we haven't shown that.
We've added extra players to [solve that issue]; Vaz Te's got two now so hopefully he'll go on. If you look at Vaz Te's record he is the man for us this year because that's 16 for this season. He came to us having scored 14 for Barnsley and he's scored two for us now. We could have done with him at the start of the season, couldn't we? [laughs]
It'll be a similar sort of test for you on Saturday?
No. No, I'm expecting us to be brave enough, produce our best performance and win. It'll not be easy, it's never easy to win a game of football; Doncaster won 2-1 at Nottingham Forest last night and will get a massive confidence boost from it. We know we've got to play at our best - or as near to our best - and the result will look after itself.
Thank you...