Armchair view v Hammers

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

The thing is, that is down to the quality of the players, it's not the tactics. People can analyze all they want, but the simple answer is that other teams have better players than us and we need to be on top of our game to beat about half the teams in this division.

Gus will bring in better players over time but it doesn't happen over night. Reyes is a start, I'm sure there will be others.

It's so simple it's amazing that it needs mentioning.

Poyet has repeatedly said that he wants to be here for a long time and that we're a long term project. He's trying to build the club from the ground up, something that takes time. At the moment we have an average championship team. Poyet knows where we need strengthening and has made moves to do it, hence Harper and Reyes. I'm confident that before the end of the season there will be more additions to the squad and the weaker links will fall by the wayside.

Everyone seems to have been impressed by Reyes. He's the calibre of player that we need to be bringing in, a class above most of the players we have. With a team full of players of a similar level we'd be right up the top of the table. And it's his calibre of player that pretty much every other team in the top half of the table has. It's nothing(or very little) to do with the formation or tactics. It's quality of player.

Give us a team of players of comparable ability to the top ten or twelve teams and the way we play will see us promoted.

 

[sydney]

What ever you like to think. Did it not occur to you that I have NSC in a seperate window when well im bored.

yeah , aren't you supposed to be waxing yer birds forehead or something...??

 

[Bigtomfu]

Too many posts on here that I want to quote and debate with.

We move the ball too slowly

Its painfully obvious at the moment that a few teams have sussed out that to stop us passing our way out of defence you don't actually need two forwards running at our defenders like headless chickens, you just need to play one more in central midfield than us and press there.

Too often last night I thought that Dunk or Greer had to resort to attempted Hollywood/Quarterback passes out to the wings because there was no obvious route forward the middle of the park.

Its been noticable to me that Calderon and Painter have had a slightly different mandate this season. Not pushing on into the opposition half as much, and therefore not taking quick ball from the centre backs or moving it forward to the wide players swiftly enough. The arrival of Reyes seems to have remedied one side of the pitch - he's quicker, stronger and more adept on the ball than Calderon and IF we had the same option on the left (perhaps through Vincelot) then I think we would have a much greater chance of finding a suitable outlet for the ball. It was blatantly obvious that every time Painter got the ball he was reluctant to play it straight on to Noone and then turning inside himself to find an alternative caused him all end of problems. This combined with his lack of pace gives me cause for concern.

The current midfield trio, Vicente aside, seem to dwell on the ball too often - yes Bridcutt seemed to succumb to it yesterday for the first time - but this is something that can probably only be changed with a change in personnel.

The Barnes conundrum

Definitely NOT a winger or deep lying forward Gus so please pick the men for the formation. Yes Hoskins failed to dazzle when he replaced Barnes yesterday but I would seriously question the sanity of any Albion fan who saw him work with purpose and guile coming in from wide positions against Millwall to suggest that he doesn't deserve a run out.

I don't want to detract from Barnes' achievements last year - I never thought he would get near 20 goals and I was thoroughly impressed with his start to the season so far with the performance against Peterborough and Cardiff obvious highlights. BUT I am concerned that he isn't robust enough, cannot hold the ball up, and seems to be profligate when in front of the goal at the moment.


All in all I would give the team and Gus a B- for there start to the season. I never thought we would run away with this league, I thought we would scare a few of the more fancied sides - which we might still do. I feel that there is definite room for improvement, but the most important thing for me is that it would appear that Gus and Tony clearly have a plan, and that plan involves backing the manager when he feels players can be found to make improvements to the squad.

Now lets stick together and stay focussed behind the team. We owe someone an absolute tonking and I for one want to be around when it happens.

 

[Rugrat]

Good post by Bigtomfu .... I've read lots of interesting thoughts here today plus the normal bollox like "If you can't get behind the team then f**K off" sort of stuff ... for some reason it's a simple black or white in the minds of some ... for me it's about hearing what peeps think could be done to improve ... that's what evolution is all about and if anyone doesn't think Gus et al aren't thinking along the same lines (how do we continue to improve) then they are even more blinkered and deluded than I can imagine

 

[Mellotron]

It's so simple it's amazing that it needs mentioning.

Poyet has repeatedly said that he wants to be here for a long time and that we're a long term project. He's trying to build the club from the ground up, something that takes time. At the moment we have an average championship team. Poyet knows where we need strengthening and has made moves to do it, hence Harper and Reyes. I'm confident that before the end of the season there will be more additions to the squad and the weaker links will fall by the wayside.

Everyone seems to have been impressed by Reyes. He's the calibre of player that we need to be bringing in, a class above most of the players we have. With a team full of players of a similar level we'd be right up the top of the table. And it's his calibre of player that pretty much every other team in the top half of the table has. It's nothing(or very little) to do with the formation or tactics. It's quality of player.

Give us a team of players of comparable ability to the top ten or twelve teams and the way we play will see us promoted.

Spot on times a MILLION. It is only a matter of time.

 

[Clive Walker's slaphead]

Disagree with an earlier post about not having a bigger guy up front. We need someone who can prove a real handful for opposition defences to occupy them so that Mackail-Smith can exploit the gaps that leaves. At the mo every time he goes for the ball he has two and sometimes three defenders around him

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Too many posts on here that I want to quote and debate with.

We move the ball too slowly

Its painfully obvious at the moment that a few teams have sussed out that to stop us passing our way out of defence you don't actually need two forwards running at our defenders like headless chickens, you just need to play one more in central midfield than us and press there.

Too often last night I thought that Dunk or Greer had to resort to attempted Hollywood/Quarterback passes out to the wings because there was no obvious route forward the middle of the park.

Its been noticable to me that Calderon and Painter have had a slightly different mandate this season. Not pushing on into the opposition half as much, and therefore not taking quick ball from the centre backs or moving it forward to the wide players swiftly enough. The arrival of Reyes seems to have remedied one side of the pitch - he's quicker, stronger and more adept on the ball than Calderon and IF we had the same option on the left (perhaps through Vincelot) then I think we would have a much greater chance of finding a suitable outlet for the ball. It was blatantly obvious that every time Painter got the ball he was reluctant to play it straight on to Noone and then turning inside himself to find an alternative caused him all end of problems. This combined with his lack of pace gives me cause for concern.

The current midfield trio, Vicente aside, seem to dwell on the ball too often - yes Bridcutt seemed to succumb to it yesterday for the first time - but this is something that can probably only be changed with a change in personnel.

The Barnes conundrum

Definitely NOT a winger or deep lying forward Gus so please pick the men for the formation. Yes Hoskins failed to dazzle when he replaced Barnes yesterday but I would seriously question the sanity of any Albion fan who saw him work with purpose and guile coming in from wide positions against Millwall to suggest that he doesn't deserve a run out.

I don't want to detract from Barnes' achievements last year - I never thought he would get near 20 goals and I was thoroughly impressed with his start to the season so far with the performance against Peterborough and Cardiff obvious highlights. BUT I am concerned that he isn't robust enough, cannot hold the ball up, and seems to be profligate when in front of the goal at the moment.


All in all I would give the team and Gus a B- for there start to the season. I never thought we would run away with this league, I thought we would scare a few of the more fancied sides - which we might still do. I feel that there is definite room for improvement, but the most important thing for me is that it would appear that Gus and Tony clearly have a plan, and that plan involves backing the manager when he feels players can be found to make improvements to the squad.

Now lets stick together and stay focussed behind the team. We owe someone an absolute tonking and I for one want to be around when it happens.

LOVING this post. LOVE IT x