West Ham United FC v Cardiff

With comparatively easier games, barring Everton, and up until we travel to shite hart lane at the beginning of October, we have a team who should accumulate enough points to give us a cushion to fall back on .


Fall back on ????????????

No complacency this season please , we gave away far too many points in the latter part of the last season , I would love 30+ points by Christmas out of a possible 54 points , 18 games in total , that is allowing for several defeats and several draws , we need to make Upton a place where visiting teams do not get an easy time of it , far two many of the bastards got away with a point or even three points that they should not have done last season, Manure ,Liverpool , QPR, The Yids ,Sunderland all got away with it here .

Chas Hammer wrote:Is it me or does that sound a bit like the start to last season Oh Jiggly One?  Did well then fell on our faces and spent the rest of our season trying, eventually succeeding, to get it up there?

I don't think so Chas....Last season was all about easing our way back into the Prem..........This season is all about bettering last one, and I see no reason as to why we shouldn't.  

DublinHammer wrote:With comparatively easier games, barring Everton, and up until we travel to shite hart lane at the beginning of October, we have a team who should accumulate enough points to give us a cushion to fall back on .


Fall back on ????????????

No complacency this season please , we gave away far too many points in the latter part of the last season , I would love 30+ points by Christmas out of a possible 54 points , 18 games in total , that is allowing for several defeats and several draws , we need to make Upton a place where visiting teams do not get an easy time of it , far two many of the bastards got away with a point or even three points that they should not have done last season, Manure ,Liverpool , QPR, The Yids ,Sunderland all got away with it here .

Yep, fall back on, maybe I should have added if required........Even the best teams have off days, the not so good have exceptional ones, and we all have injuries to contend with. You might prefer to call it saving for a rainy day !

Just watched the MOTD highlights for the second time -gives a completely different impression from the comm that I had yesterday, that's why it's good to have reports from those that were there.
Regarding Maiga, he's skillful and his distribution appears to be good,and he can score some goals if pre-season form is to be believed, but his game is totally different to Carroll and the late lamented CFC. If the options remain just Carroll or Maiga up front, then we are going to play very differently depending on who plays. Granted, I haven't seen the whole match, but I have the impression that we played a lot more on the floor going forward than when Carroll plays, which is understandable. It worked against sub-standard opposition, but the direct game is a better bet against top-end teams IMO. If I'm right, that means most of the team have to learn two different " standard" game plans - hope they can cope with that!
Most team's Plan A would be to play the clever stuff and see if it works, if not, revert to the direct long-ball Plan B. With Carroll as lead striker we will be the other way round. Hope it works! 

SemiOldIron wrote:Just watched the MOTD highlights for the second time -gives a completely different impression from the comm that I had yesterday, that's why it's good to have reports from those that were there.
Regarding Maiga, he's skillful and his distribution appears to be good,and he can score some goals if pre-season form is to be believed, but his game is totally different to Carroll and the late lamented CFC. If the options remain just Carroll or Maiga up front, then we are going to play very differently depending on who plays. Granted,  I haven't seen the whole match, but I have the impression that we played a lot more on the floor going forward than when Carroll plays, which is understandable. It worked against sub-standard opposition, but the direct game is a better bet against top-end teams IMO. If I'm right, that means most of the team have to learn two different " standard" game plans - hope they can cope with that!
Most team's Plan A would be to play the clever stuff and see if it works, if not, revert to the direct long-ball Plan B. With Carroll as lead striker we will be the other way round. Hope it works!   

Sadly not when Ginge is in possession. He still continued the long high diagonal ball out to Jarvis and Cole. Just gifting possession back to the opposition

Nothing much more to add then jigs report.

Thought downing looked very lively when he came on. I was surprised Rat didn't start, but it's often then way for most teams to ease new players in rather then just giving them a starting place from day 1. J'ob did nothing much wrong last season or yesterday so it's up to Rat to play Better when his chance comes. And that's how teams improve and evolve IMHO.

As has been mentioned, what a strong bench we had! It would have been nice to see rat, downing, diarra and Morrison more, but it's a long old season. Soon there time will come. On the mean time, the strength in depth will keep the starting 11 playing out their skins, the thing we totally lacked the season we went down with cole, Carrick etc.

Cardiff looked competent and solid but lacked any creativity or craft- I have NEVER felt so relaxed watching west ham. We controlled the game from 1-95th minute. My man of the match was Nolan, but cole wasn't a bad shout.

Away from the game, it was lovely seeing a big turn out in the supps club. For me, it makes all the difference, if I just turned up and watched the game on my Todd it wouldn't be half the experience that it was yesterday. Meet sue and Ian about 11:50, had a shop together in the club shop before bagging a good corner in the supps. Periodically Abbi, tony, a grumpy Lesley   tania, Brian, jean, and relies of Ian joined us. Beer and friends, football and a win. Perfect.


Thanks for sue and Ian for offering me the ticket. Much appreciated

PS, sues rants are brilliant, sire is a loud barsteward who gets the crowd going and isn't adverse to kissing me. And ruffling my hair. Worrying part of the day  

Abbi's  fault I was grumpy 

Tony P wrote:

SemiOldIron wrote:Just watched the MOTD highlights for the second time -gives a completely different impression from the comm that I had yesterday, that's why it's good to have reports from those that were there.
Regarding Maiga, he's skillful and his distribution appears to be good,and he can score some goals if pre-season form is to be believed, but his game is totally different to Carroll and the late lamented CFC. If the options remain just Carroll or Maiga up front, then we are going to play very differently depending on who plays. Granted,  I haven't seen the whole match, but I have the impression that we played a lot more on the floor going forward than when Carroll plays, which is understandable. It worked against sub-standard opposition, but the direct game is a better bet against top-end teams IMO. If I'm right, that means most of the team have to learn two different " standard" game plans - hope they can cope with that!
Most team's Plan A would be to play the clever stuff and see if it works, if not, revert to the direct long-ball Plan B. With Carroll as lead striker we will be the other way round. Hope it works!   

Sadly not when Ginge is in possession. He still continued the long high diagonal ball out to Jarvis and Cole. Just gifting possession back to the opposition

Hmmm, they didn't show any of that on the highlights - not surprising. Sounds like dear old Ginge can only get his head round one game plan, then..... 

Alfie, it was our pleasure honey.

Very pleasing performance on Saturday - two very good goals and a clean sheet. Can't ask for more than that! I agree with Alfie's points regarding Joey O'Brien and Rat, along with the concept of competition for places. I can also see his point regarding Nolan for Man of the Match, one or two great blocks on goalbound Cardiff attempts in the first half, coupled with a sublime finish for the clinching second goal. However, I personally can't look past Joey Cole for the award, his goal was expertly taken and he really gives us something different. Certainly staked his claim to rival Jarvis and Downing down the flanks, with Jarvo and Stewart impressing too. Downing's cameo was right in front of me in my corner and he looked class.

Looking forward to the visit to Newcastle next week, even more so if Remy remains unfit and they end up selling Cabaye!

I knew Joey was going to score as he was turning on the ball and leaped up and shouted Yesssss!! before anyone else.  Hows that for confidence in a player?

Dan C wrote:Very pleasing performance on Saturday - two very good goals and a clean sheet. Can't ask for more than that! I agree with Alfie's points regarding Joey O'Brien and Rat, along with the concept of competition for places. I can also see his point regarding Nolan for Man of the Match, one or two great blocks on goalbound Cardiff attempts in the first half, coupled with a sublime finish for the clinching second goal. However, I personally can't look past Joey Cole for the award, his goal was expertly taken and he really gives us something different. Certainly staked his claim to rival Jarvis and Downing down the flanks, with Jarvo and Stewart impressing too. Downing's cameo was right in front of me in my corner and he looked class.

Looking forward to the visit to Newcastle next week, even more so if Remy remains unfit and they end up selling Cabaye!

I had one of my all time fave west ham supporting moments up there last year- enjoy!

Ps thanks for agreeing with me so much dan, unheard of!

Jiggs wrote:I knew Joey was going to score as he was turning on the ball and leaped up and shouted Yesssss!! before anyone else.  Hows that for confidence in a player?

Could have ended up embarrassingly premature though....

alfiehammer wrote:Nothing much more to add then jigs report.

PS, sues rants are brilliant, sire is a loud barsteward who gets the crowd going and isn't adverse to kissing me. And ruffling my hair. Worrying part of the day  

sues was off form with her rants, they are normally more prolonged and much more frequent, sign of how comfortable we was i suppose
and i got a bit excited when we scored dude sorry, besides its them big muscley arms of yours that make you so attractive