Unfair criticism of Painter and Calderon

[Farehamseagull]

I note in recent weeks Painter and Calderon have been getting a lot of stick on here and even tonight when I thought Painter had an excellent game there are posts suggesting he should still be dropped.

Obviously Gus is thinking along these lines as he has dropped Calderon twice recently but to me theyre not the problem. All season long our weakness has been our midfield. Dicker, Sparrow and Hartley have been very poor and continually leave our defense exposed. Tonight Bridcutt had a very rare poor game which made the problem worse. Also when Noone/Buckley or the other wide players attack out other midfielders dont seem intelligent enough to cover them.

Aswell as not offering much cover defensively the midfield actually create very little. We might have had a number of attempts at goal tonight but none of them were clear cut, usually long range shots and our set pieces were abysmal.

Forget signing target men, keepers, full backs etc. the midfield is where games are won and lost and until we sign better players there I dont believe we will finish any higher than low mid table.

Hopefully Gus will try Reyes in midfield and he will improve things as he looked class tonight but my god I am missing Elliott Bennett right now!

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

Just because the midfield hasn't performed as well as we may have hoped doesn't make Painter and Calderon immune from criticism about the deficiencies in their play.

 

[Silent Bob]

Calde's been dropped twice so obviously it's not just on here that he's a bit out of favour.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

The whole defence has been criticised by the more vociferous of this website. What should really be criticised is our lack of competitiveness in midfield that leaves the defence weakened. We are not defending from front to back, or at best just losing it in midfield as I have said here Armchair view v Hammers

 

[Farehamseagull]

Just because the midfield hasn't performed as well as we may have hoped doesn't make Painter and Calderon immune from criticism about the deficiencies in their play.

But I dont think they have been that bad, they are both good enough for this division in my opinion, as i said I think Painter was superb tonight against good oposition. They have no protection in front of them though which makes life a lot harder for them. I think Gus was wrong to drop Calderon, I hole he comes back into the team and Reyes is pushed into centre mid with Bridcutt.

It might be old fashioned now but I would like to see a traditional 442 with Noone/Vicente on one wing and Buckley on the other attacking but also supporting our full backs when defending. CMS and Hoskins up top