Embarrassment

This is a reply re Kray jnr and Jiggs post " Embarrasing" from the Norwich match thread and considering its a rant I posted it here.

Jiggs, Your absolutely right and this embarrassment and as I've stated from my first post on this site is the consequence of The Dizzy David's appointments of Firstly Avram Grant and then Allardyce and his antiquated way of how the game is played which has us stagnating in the past while others with  modern visions are simply and clearly moving forward and leaving us stuck  with the Hit and Hope football of the Arrogant Norther Nause  Fat Sam who is full of his own self interest and agenda and was, is and always will be the wrong appointment.

Look I know the owners took us on while we were in financial melt down after being raped and pillaged and mismanaged for years, and fair play to them for steadying the ship financially but while doing it they still got the two biggest calls (Grant then Allardyce ) wrong and  hence via poor management decisions and pointed out since the signing of Carroll, yesterdays introduction of Carlton Cole a player thought unworthy of a contract renewal who is clearly no longer good enough at this level culminating in said feeling of embarrassment and even with a fit and firing Andy Carroll I still don't believe Allardyce and his brand of football  and management style is right for us or any club for that matter.
Irons In The Soul

HH66, I can't agree with all you say.  Allerdyce was the right appointment to get us back into the premier league and he deserved more time after us finishing 10th last season.  But, he's had enough games to prove himself and now his time is up.

Your observations on this club being left in the dark ages I totally agree with.  For confirmation see Liverpool and Rodgers and in particular Southampton and Pochettino.  In stark contrast, from being in the exact same position as us two seasons ago, their current league position confirms that they are by far the most superior and disciplined club of the two. Adkins had taken Southampton as far as he could, so he was sacked and replaced, simples.  The fact that he is a prat had nothing to do with it.

Just a thought - Steve Clarke was our assistant manager when we let him go and employed Allerdyce instead. Now look at him go with WBA!  Hindsight - if only.

Life without Allardyce will be much worse than life with him. He retains my fervent support.

Jiggs does raise some very interesting points about saints and WBA. Going from strength to strength. That said, most promoted teams come up, sack their managers, and soon get relegated again. We are slowly building for the future, and Sam still has my backing. I feel Sam, the club and the fans are just unlucky and suffering with Carroll's continued absent ism and when he returns we all deserve the chance to see Sam set things right.

alfiehammer wrote:Jiggs does raise some very interesting points about saints and WBA. Going from strength to strength. That said, most promoted teams come up, sack their managers, and soon get relegated again. We are slowly building for the future, and Sam still has my backing. I feel Sam, the club and the fans are just unlucky and suffering with Carroll's continued absent ism and when he returns we all deserve the chance to see Sam set things right.

Mate, I've been raising these points from my first posts last Aug /Sept especially concerning  us being left behind with Allardyce and his outdated management while other clubs with modern managers who have new modern visions of the game and how to move it forward flourish and as I saw it  and still see it these fears are now reality Below are 3 of my first posts last September

'My manager wanted Andy Carroll, so we backed him. 

'Andy was the perfect player for him and the style of football we play.


Ambitious: Co-owner David Sullivan also wants Wolves winger Matt Jarvis

'We play a lot of high balls, a lot of crosses - quite exciting football, not just humping it but clever crossing - and Sam wanted Jarvis to supply the crosses because he is a fantastic crosser.

All the stats show that this brand of football is on the decline yet our astute owner states in the national press that "We play a lot of high balls, a lot of crosses" If this is the Vision and Mission of our Manager and owners then we are bang in trouble and going backwards not forwards


 they (David's) managed to relegate us in their first season with Grant then lumbered us with Fat Boy Slim, sorry Sam as a result of this in their second and we are now a one trick pony playing an out dated version of the game which I can only see leading to more heart break and humiliation for us the fans

Ok, so the Fat Controller keeps us up with this physical, predictable, outdated and ugly type of football, as outlined by our owners and looks like being confirmed by the above stats. We loose another season playing our "antique take on the game while our competitors have continued to evolve and improve to the next level;EXACTLY WHAT SORT OF PLAYER IS GONNA WANT TO PLAY FOR US?, We are allready devoid of any real quality and struggling to attract quality as any right minded quality " EVOLUTIONARY BALL PLAYERS" are gonna avoid us and our prehistoric football like the plague and we end up havin to watch average journeymen playing UGLY FUCKIN ALLADYCE FOOTBALL for another season with another relegation battle.

I love Our West Ham as much as all of us and hopefully and as so eloquently pointed out by all of ya, am chattin complete and utterly unfounded, misguided and delusional bollicks,

IRONS IN THE SOUL

Did you watch the game on Saturday? We dominated through possession football, not an "ugly long ball" in sight. It was great to watch as a visiting supporter in the stands. The criticism is in that we should have scored more and that our goalkeeper made a rare, but costly, blunder. We do not play ugly, long ball football - it is a myth created and exaggerated by the media because of moans made by Wenger and Mourinho when Allardyce's side used to get results off them in the early-to-mid-'00s.

Good football players do join us. Stewart Downing is an England international, so is Andy Carroll. Ravel Morrison is a young star who is fleet of foot and has been given his go in the side by Allardyce. Razvan Rat is an attacking left-back, Mark Noble, Winston Reid and James Tomkins have come on leaps and bounds under his management and a team spirit has been fostered, the like of which probably hasn't been seen at West Ham United since the late '90s.

We tried a young coach with a modern approach in Gianfranco Zola. He finished 9th with Curbishley's team and, as that broke up, took us to the brink of the drop in 17th place. The football was sideways, backwards, narrow and dull - we didn't win many games. Under Grant, we lost more leads than I care to remember and the 'spirit' was non-existent.

I like having a manager who isn't afraid to come out and tell it as it is. A manager who will go into the dressing-room and tell them when they're not playing well, rather than look meek and dress it up, as Zola and Grant did week after week. I said it in the dodgy spell in January last season and I will say it again - we will be fine with Big Sam.

Dan C wrote:Did you watch the game on Saturday? We dominated through possession football, not an "ugly long ball" in sight. It was great to watch as a visiting supporter in the stands. ...

The first half against Norwich was a great example of the style of play we can move towards with players like JCole, Morrison and Downing in the side. It was rather like watching the old West Ham of Brooking and Devonshire's days... and to reinforce the point, we lost  

Just to play devil's advocate here - does anyone think we would have played 4-6-0 with controlled possession football this season had Andy Carroll been available for every game? I don't. We would have played to Carroll's (and therefore Nolan's) strengths. That is NOT to say "ugly football"

We have been forced into it by lacking a target man capable of winning his battles up front on his own, retaining possession and bringing others into play. We have two pretty effective wingers both capable of delivering dangerous crosses into the opponent's box. Unfortunately we do not have players capable - or with the desire - to get on the end of those crosses

Allardyce's hand has been forced. A result - in hindsight - of a flawed plan to rely on ONE particular player/type of player with no back-up. I blame Allardyce for that

[quote="Dan C"]Did you watch the game on Saturday? We dominated through possession football, not an "ugly long ball" in sight. It was great to watch as a visiting supporter in the stands. The criticism is in that we should have scored more and that our goalkeeper made a rare, but costly, blunder. We do not play ugly, long ball football - it is a myth created and exaggerated by the media because of moans made by Wenger and Mourinho when Allardyce's side used to get results off them in the early-to-mid-'00s.

Good football players do join us. Stewart Downing is an England international, so is Andy Carroll. Ravel Morrison is a young star who is fleet of foot and has been given his go in the side by Allardyce. Razvan Rat is an attacking left-back, Mark Noble, Winston Reid and James Tomkins have come on leaps and bounds under his management and a team spirit has been fostered, the like of which probably hasn't been seen at West Ham United since the late '90s.

We tried a young coach with a modern approach in Gianfranco Zola. He finished 9th with Curbishley's team and, as that broke up, took us to the brink of the drop in 17th place. The football was sideways, backwards, narrow and dull - we didn't win many games. Under Grant, we lost more leads than I care to remember and the 'spirit' was non-existent.

I like having a manager who isn't afraid to come out and tell it as it is. A manager who will go into the dressing-room and tell them when they're not playing well, rather than look meek and dress it up, as Zola and Grant did week after week. I said it in the dodgy spell in January last season and I will say it again - we will be fine with Big Sam

Tony P wrote:
Allardyce's hand has been forced. A result - in hindsight - of a flawed plan to rely on ONE particular player/type of player with no back-up. I blame Allardyce for that

Just Allardyce? I find it difficult to believe that a man with his experience would choose to put all his eggs in one basket. It's clear that whatever backup / contingency / alternative plans he had didn't work out at all, resulting in the embarrassing saga with CFC, but was it all his fault? I doubt it. Sullivan, Gold and Brady have too much influence on who we try to sign and what we are prepared to pay to avoid any responsibility. BFS will accept being the scapegoat because he knows that's part of the job.

SemiOldIron wrote:

Tony P wrote:
Allardyce's hand has been forced. A result - in hindsight - of a flawed plan to rely on ONE particular player/type of player with no back-up. I blame Allardyce for that

Just Allardyce? I find it difficult to believe that a man with his experience would choose to put all his eggs in one basket. It's clear that whatever backup / contingency / alternative plans he had didn't work out at all, resulting in the embarrassing saga with CFC,  but was it all his fault? I doubt it. Sullivan, Gold and Brady have too much influence on who we try to sign and what we are prepared to pay to avoid any responsibility. BFS will accept being the scapegoat because he knows that's part of the job.

I don't believe for one minute that Gold, Sullivan and Brady have any influence on the type of player we try to sign. Of course they have a massive influence on what we can spend. IMO Gold paid too much credance to the FFP rules - which, from what I can tell seeing how much clubs like Crystal Palace, Sunderland and Norwich spent in the summer, is an utter farce. If Gold told Allardyce that due to FFP he only had circa £8m more to spend then, yes, I DO blame Allardyce for spending it all on another winger instead of another striker

The owners backed their manager as they have done since they took over the club

Dan C wrote:Did you watch the game on Saturday? We dominated through possession football, not an "ugly long ball" in sight. It was great to watch as a visiting supporter in the stands. The criticism is in that we should have scored more and that our goalkeeper made a rare, but costly, blunder. We do not play ugly, long ball football - it is a myth created and exaggerated by the media because of moans made by Wenger and Mourinho when Allardyce's side used to get results off them in the early-to-mid-'00s.

Good football players do join us. Stewart Downing is an England international, so is Andy Carroll. Ravel Morrison is a young star who is fleet of foot and has been given his go in the side by Allardyce. Razvan Rat is an attacking left-back, Mark Noble, Winston Reid and James Tomkins have come on leaps and bounds under his management and a team spirit has been fostered, the like of which probably hasn't been seen at West Ham United since the late '90s.

We tried a young coach with a modern approach in Gianfranco Zola. He finished 9th with Curbishley's team and, as that broke up, took us to the brink of the drop in 17th place. The football was sideways, backwards, narrow and dull - we didn't win many games. Under Grant, we lost more leads than I care to remember and the 'spirit' was non-existent.

I like having a manager who isn't afraid to come out and tell it as it is. A manager who will go into the dressing-room and tell them when they're not playing well, rather than look meek and dress it up, as Zola and Grant did week after week. I said it in the dodgy spell in January last season and I will say it again - we will be fine with Big Sam.

The game I saw on Saturday we lost 3- 1 to Norwich, a team who before playing us where in the relegation Zone and who, in the first half were too bad to be true and made it ridiculously easy for us and as soon as they where back in the game we fell apart and to try and get something from the game had to bring on Carlton Cole, who's whole position at the club is frankly an Embarassement
Oh and We didn't as you pointed out play any ugly long ball stuff as I'm not sure if youve noticed but  WE HAVE NO STRIKERS available or good enough to hoof it up to because of transfer decions and signings made and more importantly not made !
And What part of our owners saying
"We Play A Lot Of High Balls, A Lot Of Crosses and "Andy Was The Perfect Player For Him And The Style Of Football We Play" do you not get ????
At least Nolan appologised for the performance in like Fat Sam who typically blamed everyone and everything else except himself


As for the players you mentioned 3 where regects from bigger clubs who had no use for them in their squads ( Dalgleish signed Downing and Carroll, completely fecked up Liverpool and was sacked Morrison was a lucky punt, saying that our last lucky punt on a crazy player was Di Canio !!) Rat looks ok

Look it's all about oppinions, yours is Allardyce was and is the right man to take the club forward mine is the polar opposite and saw him and see him as a dinosaur of a manager who may have been a quick fix but ultimately is so wrong for us doing more harm than good

Well said Dan [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Once again an honest and intelligent assessment of the game, players and management.

Tony P wrote:

SemiOldIron wrote:

Tony P wrote:
Allardyce's hand has been forced. A result - in hindsight - of a flawed plan to rely on ONE particular player/type of player with no back-up. I blame Allardyce for that

Just Allardyce? I find it difficult to believe that a man with his experience would choose to put all his eggs in one basket. It's clear that whatever backup / contingency / alternative plans he had didn't work out at all, resulting in the embarrassing saga with CFC,  but was it all his fault? I doubt it. Sullivan, Gold and Brady have too much influence on who we try to sign and what we are prepared to pay to avoid any responsibility. BFS will accept being the scapegoat because he knows that's part of the job.

I don't believe for one minute that Gold, Sullivan and Brady have any influence on the type of player we try to sign. Of course they have a massive influence on what we can spend. IMO Gold paid too much credance to the FFP rules - which, from what I can tell seeing how much clubs like Crystal Palace, Sunderland and Norwich spent in the summer, is an utter farce. If Gold told Allardyce that due to FFP he only had circa £8m more to spend then, yes, I DO blame Allardyce for spending it all on another winger instead of another striker

The owners backed their manager as they have done since they took over the club

I think you misunderstand me somewhat, Mr P. The type of player we sign and the style of play is down to the manager, agreed. And what we are prepared to pay in transfer fees and salaries is largely down to the owners, it's their money. Now I have no inside knowledge of what the club's strategy was during the transfer window, but I can't believe that BFS had no other plan than banking on Carroll being fit all season, and having no cover for him even though our whole style of play was built round that role. Whatever that plan was, though, it didn't happen. Could have been poor scouting intelligence, could have been agents pissing about, could have been players being fickle about signing, could have been all sorts of things - we may never know. Included in the possibilities, for me, is that the owners and/or Brady could possibly have had a hand in it. The club found itself in a hole, which I choose to see as the responsibility of the whole club management team, not just BFS. It's of little consequence anyway, if we don't claw our way out Allardyce will carry the can by himself, that's the way the system goes.
I agree with you about FFP. Reminds me of the UK signing up to EU regulations and studiously following them , while the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks sign up, then simply ignore them whenever it suits their interests. Hope this doesn't start the site proprietor off ....... 

I personally have,nt seen West Ham playing that kind of football for a long time , I was thoroughly enjoying it , we played top club football and it was,nt because they were crap , what happened in the second half is beyond me , we just fell apart , The reason for this could be taken from a long list of things , Sams pep talk or lack of one , the team the , changes
take your pick . We have been unlucky , again , we started ok but now we find our selves close to the brown stuff , so what do we do . STOP PLAYING CFC:hair:

The idea is to mix things up a bit, not to be so predictable.  Even having Carroll fit for a whole season would have seen us rumbled playing the long ball and caught out more times than not.  Playing 4-6-0 only worked once didn't it?... I'm so glad we chose Tottscum away for that!  

When you manage something, you make sure you have the right tools for the job, if you don't - get some in.  When they become outdated  - replace. Blunt - sharpen. Chuck out the deadwood and leave it binned. Changes required? Make them where they are needed, be ruthless, even if the foreman is your best mate. 

To be successful in management, it's imperative that you cater for every eventuality,   BFS hasn't done that.

SemiOldIron wrote:

Tony P wrote:

SemiOldIron wrote:

Tony P wrote:
Allardyce's hand has been forced. A result - in hindsight - of a flawed plan to rely on ONE particular player/type of player with no back-up. I blame Allardyce for that

Just Allardyce? I find it difficult to believe that a man with his experience would choose to put all his eggs in one basket. It's clear that whatever backup / contingency / alternative plans he had didn't work out at all, resulting in the embarrassing saga with CFC,  but was it all his fault? I doubt it. Sullivan, Gold and Brady have too much influence on who we try to sign and what we are prepared to pay to avoid any responsibility. BFS will accept being the scapegoat because he knows that's part of the job.

I don't believe for one minute that Gold, Sullivan and Brady have any influence on the type of player we try to sign. Of course they have a massive influence on what we can spend. IMO Gold paid too much credance to the FFP rules - which, from what I can tell seeing how much clubs like Crystal Palace, Sunderland and Norwich spent in the summer, is an utter farce. If Gold told Allardyce that due to FFP he only had circa £8m more to spend then, yes, I DO blame Allardyce for spending it all on another winger instead of another striker

The owners backed their manager as they have done since they took over the club

I think you misunderstand me somewhat, Mr P. The type of player we sign and the style of play is down to the manager, agreed. And what we are prepared to pay in transfer fees and salaries is largely down to the owners,  it's their money. Now I have no inside knowledge of what the club's strategy was during the transfer window, but I can't believe that BFS had no other plan than banking on Carroll being fit all season, and having no cover for him even though our whole style of play was built round that role. Whatever that plan was, though, it didn't happen. Could have been poor scouting intelligence, could have been agents pissing about, could have been players being fickle about signing, could have been all sorts of things - we may never know. Included in the possibilities, for me, is that the owners and/or Brady could possibly have had a hand in it. The club found itself in a hole, which I choose to see as  the responsibility of the whole club management team, not just BFS. It's of little consequence anyway, if we don't claw our way out Allardyce will carry the can by himself, that's the way the system goes.
I agree with you about FFP. Reminds me of the UK signing up to EU regulations and studiously following them , while the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks sign up, then simply ignore them whenever it suits their interests. Hope this doesn't start the site proprietor off ....... 

I have no insider knowledge either SOI. However, David Gold used his Twitter account quite a lot during the close season. In his Tweets he continually said that we had to abide by FFP rules and (prior to signing Downing) as such could probably not afford to bring ANYONE else in. Somehow they found the money for Allardyce to bring one more player in. So, knowing Carroll was injured and (surely) knowing deep down Maiga was simply not up to it in the PL, he chose to get another winger in instead of a back-up to Carroll. Yes, the owners and manager are all culpable as they are to be praised when they get it right. However, our transfer policy this summer was flawed and we are suffering for it now. It was Allardyce that "bigged up" Carroll to such an extent that he was never likely to get a loanee like Lukaku as it was clear that they were only going to play second fiddle to Carroll. Darren Bent went out on loan. A proven Premiership striker but why would he even consider coming to us to sit on the bench (admittedly he is doing that quite a bit at Fulham !!). There were a number of names of strikers around Europe who were quoted as saying that they had spoken to us, but at the risk of repeating myself why would ANY of them join us only to be second choice - particularly in a World Cup year? We ended up getting an out of contract Petric who was half fit and an out of contract Carlton Cole who was disgracefully unfit - and ultimately not good enough

You are right. Ultimately Allardyce will live or die by his decision to go with ONE fit striker in Maiga. He may even be caught out further by going into the season with only 3 centre backs too. That area of the pitch looks pretty precarious now as well doesn't it? If we go down then he can blame all the bad luck he wants but only scoring 9 goals all season and having one of the least "shots on target" records in the league speaks volumes and is costing us big time right now

Do you remember the last time we went into a season with only 3 strikers, lost two of them to injury and ended up playing Ian Pearce up front? Yep - we went down

Hopefully Carroll will be back soon, Nolan will be revitalised playing just behind him and the goals will start coming

Here's hoping eh?