West Ham Online

"Posted the same last year. Nothing has changed, except win don't win matches anymore. I'm fed up, we can do much better"

"Possession stats this year (so far) Man City and Liverpool crazy high with high 60%s Chelsea almost 60% The rest above 50% - Leicester, Arsenal, Leeds, Brighton, and Wolves. One team in the top 4 below 50% - Spurs. 4 more in the top 10 - Man Utd, Newcastle, Bournemouth (worst), Fulham."

"Football is not about keeping the ball, it's what you do with it. There is a fundamental difference. I have seen games where we have won with 20% possession. It means there are many facets of the game tactically. This is largely determined by the players you have and their strengths and weaknesses, how you set up to play. For me it is getting the ball forward as quickly as possible (counter attacking football) between the lines, which requires movement, the correct weight of pass (one touch passing) through to your centre forward or a 3rd man runner. I thought Bayern under Pep played some really dynamic football and you see that City do as well. But a lot has to do with your quality of player. You also need defensive acumen when it all breaks down - some say that is negative when you get 10 men behnd the ball and work your bollocks off to defend - that is an art form in itself. So you can have all the ball but if you cannot score you do not win the game. Bored now but i could go on .... rather not"

.....and breathe.

"I'm sure some people get angry at the utter crap you talk, but calling you a cսnt is a simple statement of face. cսnt. see If I were angry I'd capitalise it. cսnt See the difference. If I wrongly assumed you whining about not winning anything on a Moyes out thread as being unsupportive of him as a manager then my insincere apologies. Perhaps you should focus on cleaning up your incoherent posts."

"The anger! Blimey. You want a list of managers who have won something in England since the Prem began? Just Google it. Where have I said Moyes out, btw?"

"Yes wankstain - I'm terribly upset that I have to point out you are full of shit, yet again. With Leicester being the exception that proves the rule who else has had success since the dawn of the premiership? Cups always need a bit of luck and we've not had that. You want Moyes out because he hasn't ""won"" anything then that applies to pretty much every other manager out there. Still, keep up the irrational babbling and embarrass yourself like you always do."

"You seem upset, They son? I thought winning stuff was success. Obviously we have different interpretations. Next time someone says West Ham haven't had success in 42 years, be sure to correct them."

Moyes hasn't really won much at all has he? Apart from big pay cheques. It would be great if he could get us this conference league cup.

"Wank stain - turning Everton into regular top six side, qualifying to champions league, us finishing sixth and seventh in consecutive years. He failed at Man U when given a strong side and decent budget - although can be said it was a side that was starting to fade. You can't expect to be taken seriously and ignore the fact that he has a decent track record basically unmatched outside of the big spenders. That doesn't mean he's right for the future but irrational hysteria isn't the way. But then look who I'm talking to."

"What is your measure of possession? In what part of the field? by whom? For how long? You literally only need one more goal than the other team to win a game, strange as that sounds."

"You should have said 'at least one more' You don't need to look at stats, you plank. If you've watched football over the years, you'd unequivocally know."

Yeah. Well I guess you are saying its probabilistic that the teams that have the most possession are the most likely to be best. That may be right but its so fucking boring I cant be bothered to go looking for the stats. My answer was unequivocal.

They've only relatively recently started being able to accurately measure possession. Prior to the 90s it was mostly attack vs attack!

"What success has he had, They son?"

"Thinking has always been your problem, BRAINDED."

"He's probably not going anywhere as long as he keeps winning like the past couple of games, certainly not this season. New owner in the spring may view things differently with the size of the spend. Has any of his success come from sides that have dominated possession?"

And there was me thinking the best teams scored one more than the opponents.

", 3:33 Mon Oct 10 Since I've been watching football, the majority of the best teams who have actually consistently achieved things, have always had the lion's share of the ball for the majority of games they play. I'm struggling to think of a team who who have had consistent proper success playing the way you advocate. You'll get the odd freak team, like Leicester, Athletic Madrid maybe domestically having some success. But the best teams keep the football."

The only truly defensive football would be one in which you do not concede goals but never score any. If you score a goal it must be as part of an offensive process.

It doesn't refute it at all Comma. You can be a defensive team and finish 4th as Chelsea did 2020/21. They scored 4 less but let in 11 less than us. Man Utd finished 6th and scored 3 less than us but let in 6 more last season. Stats only prove which team successfully defends or attacks better than others. Not whether they play defensive or attacking football.

The idea that we're not attacking is utter nonsense. We have scored 6 goals in the last week. Obvs we've improved. Also I do remember the poor spell!!

"You say that about Moyes but consider this, the season before last under Moyes just five teams scored more league goals than us and last season just six teams scored more. For me those two stats refute the too defensive charge against him."

"Moyes is a safety first manager but let's face it, we've tried attacking managers like Bilic, Pellegrini, Zola and we know how that ended up because our players weren't up to it. Some of the most successful managers are defensively minded. Tuchel, Morinho and Conte spring to mind. Klopp, Pep, Arteta and one or two others have had so much attacking talent they needn't worry so much about the defensive aspects but they still ensure they have keepers and defenders that don't waste the ball. The likes of Dawson and Zouma won't be getting calls from top managers like that. So I guess what I'm saying is that we are in that state where Moyes is successful at his level concentrating on defending soundly and probably won't ever manage a Man Utd (hmm!) Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool or Spurs. By the same token, we weren't ready for attack minded coaches when we had them. I think that the tragedy for Moyes is that he's too long in the tooth to change his modus operandii. We just need to be patient and wait for him to go in a couple of seasons...."

"There are two ways of achieving a massive advantage at the moment, running and passing at extreme speed and constant tricky skills that give fractions of seconds of advantage on the ball."

Alf. What I liked was some of the slightly less predictable nature of The Brazilian and the Italian. Something others are capable of and if allowed to do it will open up the defences a bit more.