Foreign chappies from Eastern Europe vs West Ham United bits n bobs

How do you think we should approach this potential banana skin? Celtic just scraped an away draw against a Kazakh side today, id rather we went out to win the damn thing early doors and tgen rattle a few goals next week at the Sir Booby Moore stadium. 

Having said that we are a few  short, no ginge, Randolph, Payet, Cresswell, Lanzini, Ogbonna, is Sakho still one of ours as he seems to be missing from every report so far? Would be  good to give some of the youngsters a run out but we also need some of our senior players to ensure a victory. 

A new era in the topsy turvey world of supporting West Ham lets hope its a cracker  

Randolph and Sakho are both available I can see the 11 coming from Adrian, Randolph, Reid, Collins, Oxford, Burke, Antonio, Byram, Page, Noble, Kouyate, Obiang, Nordtveit, Cullen, Samuelsen, Gore, Feghouli, Sakho, Valencia, Fletcher and Carroll

Plenty to choose from there

Awful start, Antonio with a complete fupp up of control, Nordtveit penalised for a handball that came off his chest.

Referee having a stinker already.

1-1 Nobles Penalty.

As expected we are worrying me in defence.

Too many similarities with last seasons failure in this competition for me.

If you are taking it seriously you don't play a back 4 of whom 3 are playing out of position.

Looks like we lost this 2-1, as i feared. Cant get the  offish to work and no longer have BTsport so dont even know the teams, dont look good though! 

It was worse than that dude.

too many in our back line worry the fupp out of me including Adrian.

Kray JR wrote:too many in our back line worry the fupp out of me including Adrian.

Reid worries me. Always has. His obsession with running out of defence to make tackles in midfield is only going to end one way in most cases. Look at the build-up to their first goal. He left his man and tried to intercept the ball on the halfway line. He failed and the ball went to "his" man who then had the shot that led to the "handball"

I remember Chelsea's equaliser at Stamford Bridge last season. He tried to chest the ball and come out of defence with it; over ran it and ended up fouling someone. Fabregas scored the free kick in first half stoppage time

Statistically when he and Obgonna were the centre back pairing we conceded the most goals last season. Reid can be a headless chicken and is a mute. Ogbonna (at times) looks like Bambi on ice in possession and cannot speak English. A recipe for disaster

Adrian worries me with the ball at his feet. He seems to almost invite the attacker to close him down before he gets rid. Scares the shit out of me

We do not have a proven goalscorer who actually wants to play for us. Lanzini and Tore are injured. Antonio is being played at right back. Payet may or may not pick up where he left off last season. I don't see where the goals are going to come from. Couple that with the fact that we are defensively awful and I am worried about the coming season; a lot

Agree with my learned friend.

What I cannot work out is Bilic was a defender himself, so why have we weakened the defence? Tomkins, with a heavy heart, had to leave to get the football (to me he was our only decent cb to bring the ball out of defence-I said decent, not great)

Last season showed the weaknesses, defence and the linking of defence to midfield, midfield to attack. All summer I have stared in disbelief at the constant board statements (and subsequent Pied Piper like following of the majority on internet brainwashed) that it is a massive year and we need a massive £30milion goalscorer. But no mention of defenders.

We don't, we needed the back four strengtheing as a squad. Instead we've bought a couple of attacking wide men (just how many can you play at once? Oh stick one at right back) and a couple of hyped up "superstars of the future". Now was the time to spend for now, not 3 years time.

We have a majority share chairman, who just puts a price on everyone's head (don't get me wrong, big fan of the Dave's and what they have and are doing), there's no need to. Also keep your trappy sons quiet-it's embarrassin STILL!

So we're top heavy in attacking options but without a clue how to get it to them, we have a centre midfield that just is not regimented STILL. Lanzini will help with the linking of midfield to attack. Payet, the great redeemer, is a luxiry and it worked last year but everyone is savvy to that now and I do have a worry he may be a one season wonder. Feghouli looks much the same as Payet, nice tricky feet but can we afford two luxury players on the pitch at the same time? We could only if midfield was a regimented unit.

This hasn't come off the back of last night's result, from the time Antonio was put back to right back last season, we lost our way completely (not blaming him, my HOTY last season) but it did magnify the problems of the defence (and how abandoned the defence was often by the midfield-no discipline, discipline only comes on the training ground).

People slate opinion and that's fair enough, but people also whip themselves up in a fickle frenzy (not so much us older ones). I'll say what I always say - 17th is all I expect (but it's not really!)