West Ham Online

Had enough of this arogrant no mark now.  

11 games, 27% win ratio and 0.66 goals per game.

Either the break clause is true or this flake quits otherwise were proper fucked.

He has’nt even had a full game with the players he would play given the chance.  Being able to play Fullktug, Sommerville, Kudus and Bowen in attack would certainly result in more goals.
Ireola did’nt win any of his first 10 games.

Interesting the success being seen at teams who are going completely against the norm of possession based football.

Moyes success here and now at Everton, built around 30% possession and keeping clean sheets.
Bordalas at Getafe is working wonders with a similar ethos.

These things tend to go in cycles, my own opinion is that we are due a different approach which goes against the modern 'norm'.

fraser wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 10:47

Keep dreaming" wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 10:32

fraser wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 10:10 Surely fixing the defence to the extent that it gives us less points a game isn't a positive! 

Why not be more attacking let in more goals and get more points? 

Everytime he's gone to go more attacking like first half Tuesday and against Brentford we've looked just as open as we did under Lop but without creating as many chances.. 

More attacking with what players? Ferguson, Soucek, Guilherme, Soler, Rodriguez, Paqueta, Alvarez, JWP? 
Everyone wants attacking football and loads of goals, but then there is reality...

You've completely missed my point, he said our defense has improved from when Lop was here it has, but we were more attacking under Lop and getting more points... 

I've also noticed your reality having a massive shift when you like the manager, your reality wasn't the same with the previous two incumbents. 

Keep dreaming" wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 10:32

fraser wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 10:10 Surely fixing the defence to the extent that it gives us less points a game isn't a positive! 

Why not be more attacking let in more goals and get more points? 

Everytime he's gone to go more attacking like first half Tuesday and against Brentford we've looked just as open as we did under Lop but without creating as many chances.. 

More attacking with what players? Ferguson, Soucek, Guilherme, Soler, Rodriguez, Paqueta, Alvarez, JWP? 
Everyone wants attacking football and loads of goals, but then there is reality...

fraser wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 10:10 Surely fixing the defence to the extent that it gives us less points a game isn't a positive! 

Why not be more attacking let in more goals and get more points? 

Everytime he's gone to go more attacking like first half Tuesday and against Brentford we've looked just as open as we did under Lop but without creating as many chances.. 

As has been said before name a successful side that placed defending as more important than attacking? I think George Graham's Arsenal was the only side that come up.

We still concede one goal a game anyway, now my maths tell me you then need to score two goals to win games. Do we look like scoring two goals?? Final genius analysis is that we won't be winning many (games) based on the above.

So Iraola is popping up as the manager to salavge us from the abyss?
At Rayo Vallecano he manage to score 39 goals in 21/22, and 45 goals in 22/23.
On par with Potter at Brighton if anyone is interested in old stats.

West ham's problems lies deeper than Potter. Diabolical transfer windows thanks to both Moyes and Lopetegui are the reasons why we are in the current position. No striker, old farts, no pace, loans etc etc.. No plan!

Im not convinced that Potter is the right manager, but calling for his head now is cheap finger-pointing and certainly undermining the actual problem.

As I said, it’s about building blocks. Clearly he needs to improve our attacking side of it, and that has to be the next challenge. Is if better to score 2 but concede 5 to Arsenal, or score 1 and concede none?

Lopetegui tried the throw everyone forward method. We were a disaster. The way I see it, Potter is trying to start with more defensive solidity to enable us to be more productive going forwards. He’s not there yet, clearly, and he nay never get there, but it’s too early to make that judgement. 

Changing managers when you don’t get instant results is all a bit Watford. I like that we don’t have a history of that. 

Ron, it gets prettier in progressions of about one goal a season. 

Surely fixing the defence to the extent that it gives us less points a game isn't a positive! 

Why not be more attacking let in more goals and get more points? 

Everytime he's gone to go more attacking like first half Tuesday and against Brentford we've looked just as open as we did under Lop but without creating as many chances.. 

He clearly saw the first thing to sort was the defence. If you don’t see an improvement there, then I’m not sure what you’re looking at. Under Lopetegui, we looked like conceding every time a team attacked us. We conceded three to Leicester from about the same number of attacks! We looked like an under 8’s team chasing back like headless chicken. If you look further back than that, under a so called defensive expert, in the 2nd half of last season, we conceded 3 to Man Utd, 6 to Arsenal, 4 to Newcastle, 5 to Palace, 5 to Chelsea. We also conceded 5 to Fulham on December. 

The point here is fixing the defence simply had to be the priority. There is clear evidence that is happening with the same players Lopetegui had. 

The issue now is he is too wedded to that 3-4-3 / 5-2-3 depending on how you look at it, and he needs to find a way of trusting the defence to continue the progress as a back 4 so that we have an extra attacking player. 

That’s his next challenge, and he surely has to be afforded that opportunity? He inherited a car crash of a situation, and even more deep rooted than just what Lopetegui fucked up. It goes way beyond his short tenure, he was just fuel on the fire. 

I agree it’s not pretty right now, but it hasn’t been for a long time. He has stripped it back to basics. I’m sure we all wrote this season off post Lopetegui and accepted it’s just putting in building blocks for next season? If there is no improvement after a proper transfer window and preseason, then he can be fairly judged as yet another mistake, but there is little value on chopping and changing managers when it’s not all bells and whistles overnight. 

The only reason the break clause has come out now is because Sullivan is basically saying yo us  "I never wanted him, I'm done with him but I have to wait a season to sack him".

Sullivan won't back him now, he'll hold the money over as much as possible as a war chest for the next manager.

He's a dead man walking already so we have 1 choice with 2 possible outcomes. We've got to give the cսnt dog's abuse so he knows what he's doing isn't and will never be acceptable here so a) he grows a pair and starts approaching games correctly or b) he flakes and walks.

 

Dick Shaftsbury" wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:39

fraser wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:35

You screamed for Lopetegui's head, yet here we are with a coach statistically doing worse yet you say others wanting him out know nothing about football and are fishing... 

Loppy had a preseason and financial backing to buy the players he wanted. At least let Potter have the same and then judge him. 

Right, scroll down to the last paragraph if you can even be bothered to read, my latest “war and piss( deliberate spelling)” diatribe. Its what happens when you’re retired, too much time on ur hands 🥴.  But thx for ur indulgence should you rediscover “the will to live” after reading whats below 👍 

Imho, the positives of Potter’s reign so far are few albeit one is arguably “a foundation”, namely, getting us better organised at the back and thru midfield to concede less than half than we previously were.

Other than that? Hnmm, well depending on whether you like to keep possession at the back and build up via passing from the goalkeeper, as opposed to launching long balls / diagonals directly to the front players, then some progress. We now pass it more comfortably or assured in player triangles from Areola thru a back 5 to any deep lying midfielders. We are marginally better at resisting the oposition’s “high press” in these deeper areas.

But for me thats about it. An incomplete transformation as we simply dont have the athletes and intensity in the midfield to progress the ball forward and essentially link defence thru attack playing Potter’s favoured controlled possession style. We typically lose it ( caught in possession, too slow passing and moving leasing to rushed inaccuate passing etc ) in that midfield area or go backwards and sideways to avoid losing it, allowing the opposition to get set back in their defensive shape, before being forced to play it back to Areola to boot it long or equally one of the deeper lying defenders or midfielders just launch it to Bowen, Kudus or hopefully now a fit Fullkrug.  10 - 20 passes gettimg nowhere. I understand what Potter wants tactically, its the same as Lopetegui and even Moyes tried to have us do this in his last season, to move the ball and in turn the opposition ( who try to press ) and that creates spaces / openings to beat their press and pass thru the midfield to the forwards or in the modern game overlapping wing backs.

It failed badly for Moyes and Lopetegui who set us up with a back 4 and for Moyes he had Zouma, Aguerd, Coufal who just couldnt do it ( technically ) and are slower than we have this season.  Lopetegui also tried with us positioned higher up the pitch to squeeze the opposition but again mostly a 4 at the back. We simply did not have a midfield to do it under the 2 previous managers and we still dont. In the case of Moyes and Lop, the opposition easily played thru and around our slow midfield / high press, ran thru in numbers into space and scored a lot of goals.

Potter’s 5 at the back and 3 defensive midfielders stops a lot of that but at the cost of nullifying us as an attacking force.Hence we are losing most games by a single goal. It really relies on us not conceding as we will only tend to get one goal ourselves.

The squad and that midfield is the gigantic problem and why our already faltering league form has not recovered since Rice went. 

Last summer the need to rectify the obvious lack of pace, athleticism, “legs” in midfield was not taken. A massive, unexcusable failure by the club with its fragmented approach to recruitment with Sullivan, Steidten, Lopetegui and Salthouse all seperately bringing in their “preferences”. A proper DOF aligned with the coach knows the profile of players needed and gets them to play the agreed style. But we did not and still dont have that. 

We, the fans, started to hate Moyesball, sit deep, static in numbers and counter because once teams sussed it we didnt have the speed to get around theor pressing and to play futther up the pitch. We just sat deep with 30% or less possession and waited for 3 or 4 counter pressing opportunities or a set piece. This same prioblem still undermines Potter and did with Lopetegui although they tried/are trying to implement a more possesion based style presumably at the direction of the owners who were relaying fans discontentment with the aforementioned Moyesball.

Right, finally to my conclusion, ( and sincere apologies again 😊 for the extreme verbal overload, and inability to be brief,) the irony is that Moyes approach perhaps only really needed modification albeit it still needed smart recruitment to make that happen ( which we dont do ). Look at Forest’s success, Bournemouth, Newcastle, Fulham others and latterly Palace, they are sometimes happy to not dominate possession but are rapid in transtiion ( counter attack ) and press relentlessly and so effectively all over the pitch and esp midfield to cause turnovers and create chances.   Also look at their personel. Quick as fvck, athletic and physically strong / competitive ( e.g. Newcastle midfield trio of Bruno G , Linton and Tonali or Gibbs White, Yates, Anderson , Elanga etc) 

Potter’s approach without the athletes needed will fail and is failing just as it did for Lop. And it seems to me that the slower, controlled possession that he wants has been superceded by the more direct approach that Nuno, Ireola, Glasner and even Slot is using at Liverpool. Not moving it around side to side all the time but using athletes and physicality to get from back to front in lightening speed. 

I think, as with all West Ham moves, we have recruited someone who is now behind the times? 

 

Dick Shaftsbury" wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:39

fraser wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:35

You screamed for Lopetegui's head, yet here we are with a coach statistically doing worse yet you say others wanting him out know nothing about football and are fishing... 

Loppy had a preseason and financial backing to buy the players he wanted. At least let Potter have the same and then judge him. 

fraser wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:35

You screamed for Lopetegui's head, yet here we are with a coach statistically doing worse yet you say others wanting him out know nothing about football and are fishing... 

twoleftfeet wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:25 Embarrassing.

Those calling for Potter out either no nothing about football or are on this site merely to

Thundercunt could be both of those. 

twoleftfeet wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:25 Embarrassing.

Those calling for Potter out either no nothing about football or are on this site merely to

Thundercunt could be both of those. 

goose wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 08:22 Not a chance will Ipswich catch us. Even if they win 5 of the remaining 8 we’d still only need to pick up 1 point from 8 games.

Not that’s anything to be proud of.

 

Embarrassing.

Those calling for Potter out either no nothing about football or are on this site merely to

Thundercunt could be both of those. 

C & H have, sadly, just reported the break clause is 18 months.

Interesting that's just been leaked, season ticket sales must be in the shitter so clearly Sullivan's going to start undermining him.

He'll now get the bare minimum to spend in the summer.

Hopefully the flake breaks and walks while Iraola is still possible.

Not a chance will Ipswich catch us. Even if they win 5 of the remaining 8 we’d still only need to pick up 1 point from 8 games.

Not that’s anything to be proud of.

Potter’s a fraud. I said it early and everything backs that belief up. 

And Ipswich won last night, if that starts a bit of momentum for them this cսnt could well be taking us to Portman Road last day of the season fighting for survival.

He could yet relegate us.

Texas Iron" wrote: ↑03 Apr 2025, 00:50 I have. Very little confidence based on his performance and pronouncements so far…

A waffling poor man’s Waistcoat…

Let’s see how he does for the. Rest of the season…