West Ham vs Brentford | League | 15.2.25 | Predictions & Match Thread

[stubbo-admin]

Match Centre:

Odds:
West Ham: 6/4
Draw: 45/17
Brentford: 39/20


Pre-Match Press Conference:
Official Press Conference


Tactical Preview: 
Babbling Irons


Watch-along:
Hammers Chat Watchalong


Streams:

SportHD 

(With all live streams be mindful they can carry viruses etc.  Don't click on any ads and use a VPN).
  

[El Scorchio]

And Wan Bissaka the only clear upgrade out of the three post Moyes players anyway. 

[Lee Trundle]

8 out the 11 that started at the weekend were players that played under Moyes.

It's hardly surprising we're playing so badly.

 

[Mad Ferret]

Moyes and co really left a swiss cheese of a squad but Sullivan, Steidten, Loppy didn’t address the gaoing holes in it to play any different.

Two windows now since Moyes left.

Let's stop blaming him for our shortcomings. 

[Sir Alf]

Understatement there Manuel

We have a squad ( die to deficiencies in key ateas like central midfield speed ) that is still best suited to playing on the counter but having to sit in a low block. Not as extreme as Moyes set up but means 3 CBs and full backs making a 5, 4 in midfield. Thats the best option at Arsenal and not dissimilar to what he did at Chelsea.  Probably still lose but at least avoids tonkings of the Loppy era.

Moyes and co really left a swiss cheese of a squad but Sullivan, Steidten, Loppy didn’t address the gaoing holes in it to play any different.

[Manuel]

I don't detect much enthusiasm for Arsenal on Saturday?

[BoleynGone]

I'm not sure what some of our players are doing in training but it must be fucking amazing to get them a start.
Emerson must be sliding in on every tackle,heading the ball 50 yards away and being almost dead at the end of training. Soucek must dribble past every player and tap in it through Areola's legs. Soler is definetly dead after every training and has passed accuretly 50 times. Kudus has beaten 2 players then a simple lay off for someone to score, hit the the target with 100% accuracy, Paqeuta played an accurate pass after 2 flicks,Alvarez 100% perfect tackles, Mavro played like a ballerina on his tips toes throughout, gliding into attack. Scarles must have hit Potter wiuth every shot 100yrds a way and IRving tackled Potter and slid him to a pile of dog shit 5 times. Guielherme arrived late,made the coaching staff the worst cups of tea ever and then arrived on the pitch for the last 2 minutes of training beat the whole squad with ease and tapped the ball in the net only to see Potter had left the ground 5 minutes before.
Todibo just buzzed about on his wheelchair not getting far in the mud.
JWP practised his corners and set pieces but ran out of balls as they flew out of the ground every time.
Ferguson played in goal.

 

[El Scorchio]

Interesting. It really stood out for me. They were pushed so far forward right on us less than 10-15 yards from our goal/goal line very aggressively for all of the first half. Usually oppo will stand about 20-30 yards from the goal and press. They were so close Areola would have been able to smell their breath. I haven't seen that very often at all from visiting teams this season.

[Rossal]

I don't think Brentford had an amazing press it's just whatever way we try to play there were major flaws. 

To play out the back you need tachnical ability and bravery on the ball we lack both massivly. 

To play long you need a focal point to win headers then some pace in midfield and on the wing to play off the header and again we lack both massivly. 

We're just so so easy to play against when we have the ball. Let us have it and then double up/ get the CM to cover our right hand side as thats the only threat. 

First half saturday they could have not played a RB and we still wouldnt of done anything down that side with Emerson and Soler 

[El Scorchio]

The insistence on playing out of the back is what winds me up. The first 10-15 mins were pretty much half of the Brentford team camped outside our area waiting for the goal kick and still we insist on putting our entire defence under massive pressure by still passing it to someone at the back. We haven't got the players to do it and it's one of my biggest gripes about modern football. How we weren't 2-3 down at half time.... We know against these quicker teams you can't have Alvarez, Soucek, Paqueta and Soler all on the same pitch in front of a slow defence. Kudus looks clueless when he's not playing on the right. Some big changes needed.

Did you see Areola trying to kick it long? It was essentially gifting them a throw in, in our half, every time so that wasn't an option. (plus until Ferguson came on we had no presence whatsoever) Playing from the back is the norm and usually ok, but Brentford had an unusually crazy aggressive press going on the likes of which you rarely see. That's what made it so difficult compared to other games. We didn't find a way to get through it. That needs working on. Don;t think it helps that none of our CBs or CDMs are 'ball players' with vision or the ability to play quickly. through the press. That problem isn't going away until we can get some new blood in the team. But if any other managers worth their salt were atching, we can expect more of the same. However, I don;t think most other teams have been drilled as well as Frank has drilled his side to do that. 

[Pav BML]

The insistence on playing out of the back is what winds me up. The first 10-15 mins were pretty much half of the Brentford team camped outside our area waiting for the goal kick and still we insist on putting our entire defence under massive pressure by still passing it to someone at the back. We haven't got the players to do it and it's one of my biggest gripes about modern football. How we weren't 2-3 down at half time.... We know against these quicker teams you can't have Alvarez, Soucek, Paqueta and Soler all on the same pitch in front of a slow defence. Kudus looks clueless when he's not playing on the right. Some big changes needed.

[El Scorchio]

Personally, I think the answer is his team’s tempo and (current) inability to get people forward, and breaking opposition lines, from midfield.

We/he needs quicker players with more of a gear change in transition, especially from deep positions in central midfield. We all know we lack legs there. We’ve got hard workers (Soucek, Alvarez). But everything is so fucking slow. Playing out from the back, too. You can see the cogs whirring with our centre halves. It’s painful and predictable - and easy to defend.

Lots to fix.

 

Brentford put on pretty much the most aggressive press I’ve ever seen from an away team. Right in our faces even within 15 yards from our goal from the very first minute. Fairly bold and remarkable and you can see why they score a lot early. Totally caught us cold and shut us down as we just couldn’t play through it. We never recovered. Not to mention they were first to everything and every loose ball and played with incredible pace back to front when they won it. They did however get an insane amount of lucky bounces or breaks where the ball deflected or bounced incredibly fortuitously to them at both ends of the pitch. 

Kept it up until half time after which they engaged in full time wasting and shithousery to kill the game, punctuated with fouling us all over the place and it going almost completely unpunished from the incredibly weak officials. 

Grudgingly it was one of the most accomplished displays from a visiting team I’ve seen in quite a while.  They played it very well indeed and rode their luck with the gutless officiating. 

I agree with all of that, Scorch.

But I think it shows three things:

Tomas Frank gets the Premier League. He gets the pace and tempo right - time and time again - and is a good manager for a team with limited resources.

Brentford show that the “smaller” sides in the Premier League can continually punch above their weight. So, as the seventh biggest, we’ve got no excuses for being so lame as often as we have been (historically).

And they showed that if you press a slow, leggy and shot-shy side hard, they won’t create much at all. Which is exactly what happened.

Potter has a lot to fix, most of which are problems he didn’t create. So he needs time and some patience. But he also needs to quickly understand that he can’t just import his biggest failing at Chelsea to West Ham and hope that the end result will be different. He’s got to improve that side of his coaching. Three shots on goal in a home game against Brentford is not acceptable in the long-term.

Having the right players is the first step.

Agree- they've done really well to hold onto Frank and a couple of their players. Mbuemo in particular. I do wonder how Frank would do at a 'big' team, so maybe the setup and expectations at Brentford are perfect for him. He has exactly the formula for this team he's got though and a proper understanding of the players he needs and how to set them up to play for max effect and results. Perfect gameplan yesterday. The second half shenanigans are really disappointing and cynical just as much as the first half was very impressive.

It definitely highlighted the need that we're well short at CD and CM. As Dietmar Hamann once said about the England national team we are like a Christmas tree, and have some fancy decorations on it, but the tree itself is really weak. We really really need a better core to the side. 

Also wonder if the decision to go four at the back was another reason we really struggled. I wonder why Potter did that for this specific game. It didn't work. He could have played three, but chose not to.

Hopefully Todibo, Scarles and Ferguson are all ready to start next time. Really be good to get Summerville back to fill that RWB slot as well, so AWB, Kilman and Todibo can be our three.

[Rossal]

After having 2 weeks to work with them that first half performance was hugely disappointing. We were lucky not to be 3-0 down at HT. As bad as anything served up so far this season. 

He got the team horribly wrong, personnel and shape. 

Soucek and Alvarez in a double pivot is shocking, everyone knows my thoughts on Soucek and saturday was just another game to add weight to my argument. Soler out on the left was madness, especially when they had a CB as a make shift RB. Get a winger out there and run at him. 

We were so so narrow down the left hand side, which is fine if your full backs provide width....but Emerson is the only left footed full back i've ever seen that never ever wants to go down the line. Just wants to come inside again and again when going forward. Felt a bit sorry for him as most the times when he looked up when he was deeper he had fuck all to hit as Soucek hides, Soler was nowhere and Paq didnt run the channels once but Scarles has to be pushing for a start for Leicester? 

At the back we were shit again, MAvro awful.....3 mins in and we concede a goal from our corner. Just so so bad, the amount of times our midfield gets run through then our defenders don't engage till near our box......so painful to watch. 

Going forward we are just so easy to play against, literally the only time we threaten is when the ball goes to the right wing. Bowen or Kudus take on the left back fizz a cross in and we might get a chance.....aside from that we have nothing. There is nothing down the left, nothing through the middle. We have 0 goal threat from our centre midfielders. 

Midfield needs a whole revamp. Alvarez needs to sit as a anchorman and have some legs alongside him or sit there as a screen to the back 4 and then have some technical players in front of him. On the whole though thought we looked lazy and leggy considering the two weeks off. 

Then to round things off took nearly two hours to get back to Hornchurch on the train, DLR running every 10 mins when there are no overheads going East all weekend! Thanks for that. Looking forward to the end of the season and hopefully a rebuild....again..... Ipswitch worry me, they string a few wins together and we're in the shit. 

[BRANDED]

Potter is clearly a fraud. Fucking doomed.

[Solidbond1]

He’s gotta be brave and drop paqueta and Alvarez it may make us look weaker on paper but the reality is  on the pitch it will makes us stronger. Can’t wait for both to leave the club Paquetas game is just a mess  and Alvarez is not good enough for the premier league, we can get better replacements 

[Fauxstralian]

Potter acknowledged that the first half was appalling & showed some lessons to learn
Most have been obvious from day 1 & after 6 or 7 games he needs to be implementing them:
You can’t play Soucek Alvarez & Paqueta in a midfield together
Mavropanos is a walking mistake 
Scarles needs to start
Ferguson needs to start
Paqueta & Kudus need a kick up the arse 

[Jasnik]

I did ask before kick off why is potter playing loppys team. 
which ended up  giving the same shit performance

[southbankbornnbred]

Personally, I think the answer is his team’s tempo and (current) inability to get people forward, and breaking opposition lines, from midfield.

We/he needs quicker players with more of a gear change in transition, especially from deep positions in central midfield. We all know we lack legs there. We’ve got hard workers (Soucek, Alvarez). But everything is so fucking slow. Playing out from the back, too. You can see the cogs whirring with our centre halves. It’s painful and predictable - and easy to defend.

Lots to fix.

 

Brentford put on pretty much the most aggressive press I’ve ever seen from an away team. Right in our faces even within 15 yards from our goal from the very first minute. Fairly bold and remarkable and you can see why they score a lot early. Totally caught us cold and shut us down as we just couldn’t play through it. We never recovered. Not to mention they were first to everything and every loose ball and played with incredible pace back to front when they won it. They did however get an insane amount of lucky bounces or breaks where the ball deflected or bounced incredibly fortuitously to them at both ends of the pitch. 

Kept it up until half time after which they engaged in full time wasting and shithousery to kill the game, punctuated with fouling us all over the place and it going almost completely unpunished from the incredibly weak officials. 

Grudgingly it was one of the most accomplished displays from a visiting team I’ve seen in quite a while.  They played it very well indeed and rode their luck with the gutless officiating. 

I agree with all of that, Scorch.

But I think it shows three things:

Tomas Frank gets the Premier League. He gets the pace and tempo right - time and time again - and is a good manager for a team with limited resources.

Brentford show that the “smaller” sides in the Premier League can continually punch above their weight. So, as the seventh biggest, we’ve got no excuses for being so lame as often as we have been (historically).

And they showed that if you press a slow, leggy and shot-shy side hard, they won’t create much at all. Which is exactly what happened.

Potter has a lot to fix, most of which are problems he didn’t create. So he needs time and some patience. But he also needs to quickly understand that he can’t just import his biggest failing at Chelsea to West Ham and hope that the end result will be different. He’s got to improve that side of his coaching. Three shots on goal in a home game against Brentford is not acceptable in the long-term.

Having the right players is the first step.

[El Scorchio]

Yeah can’t for the life of me understand why Scarles got dropped after putting in a man of the match display against Villa and hasn’t even been given a start in the league since then 

This is the point so many of our fans are not getting, Potter is being given pure blind faith under the excuse of ‘well what do you expect him to do with such a shit squad’, well at the very least he should be fielding the best players we have available, but other than the Villa cup game he’s failed to do it 


 

Im sure he knows what a talent he’s got in Scarles. And there’s no doubt he’s the future there. It might well be more that he’s evaluating whether it’s worth keeping Emerson and a couple of others. This is the time for making those decisions with a view to a clear out in the summer. We aren’t getting into Europe and we aren’t going down. 

[El Scorchio]

Personally, I think the answer is his team’s tempo and (current) inability to get people forward, and breaking opposition lines, from midfield.

We/he needs quicker players with more of a gear change in transition, especially from deep positions in central midfield. We all know we lack legs there. We’ve got hard workers (Soucek, Alvarez). But everything is so fucking slow. Playing out from the back, too. You can see the cogs whirring with our centre halves. It’s painful and predictable - and easy to defend.

Lots to fix.

 

 

Brentford put on pretty much the most aggressive press I’ve ever seen from an away team. Right in our faces even within 15 yards from our goal from the very first minute. Fairly bold and remarkable and you can see why they score a lot early. Totally caught us cold and shut us down as we just couldn’t play through it. We never recovered. Not to mention they were first to everything and every loose ball and played with incredible pace back to front when they won it. They did however get an insane amount of lucky bounces or breaks where the ball deflected or bounced incredibly fortuitously to them at both ends of the pitch. 

Kept it up until half time after which they engaged in full time wasting and shithousery to kill the game, punctuated with fouling us all over the place and it going almost completely unpunished from the incredibly weak officials. 

Grudgingly it was one of the most accomplished displays from a visiting team I’ve seen in quite a while.  They played it very well indeed and rode their luck with the gutless officiating. 

[Maverick180180]

Yeah can’t for the life of me understand why Scarles got dropped after putting in a man of the match display against Villa and hasn’t even been given a start in the league since then 

This is the point so many of our fans are not getting, Potter is being given pure blind faith under the excuse of ‘well what do you expect him to do with such a shit squad’, well at the very least he should be fielding the best players we have available, but other than the Villa cup game he’s failed to do it 
 

[Mad Ferret]

Just been reading how Potter thought we looked better once Scarles, Ferguson and Ward-Prowse came on and praised the 3 of them for making a difference 
I agree with him on that
so let’s see if he starts those 3 in the next game,
Personally don’t think he has the balls to start Scarles in anything other than cup games 

 

 

I’ve realised that he says things that we want to hear, but when it comes to the crunch, he sticks to the same old shit.

Done with this cսnt.

Lopebrummie.

[nychammer]

Just been reading how Potter thought we looked better once Scarles, Ferguson and Ward-Prowse came on and praised the 3 of them for making a difference 
I agree with him on that
so let’s see if he starts those 3 in the next game,
Personally don’t think he has the balls to start Scarles in anything other than cup games 

Scarles looked accomplished when he came on. Why not start him? What's the rub there?. Also, presumably Earthy will come back from his loan, not sure if he is tearing up trees at Bristol but showed promise in cameo appearances last year. 

[Maverick180180]

Just been reading how Potter thought we looked better once Scarles, Ferguson and Ward-Prowse came on and praised the 3 of them for making a difference 
I agree with him on that
so let’s see if he starts those 3 in the next game,
Personally don’t think he has the balls to start Scarles in anything other than cup games 

[southbankbornnbred]

Personally, I think the answer is his team’s tempo and (current) inability to get people forward, and breaking opposition lines, from midfield.

We/he needs quicker players with more of a gear change in transition, especially from deep positions in central midfield. We all know we lack legs there. We’ve got hard workers (Soucek, Alvarez). But everything is so fucking slow. Playing out from the back, too. You can see the cogs whirring with our centre halves. It’s painful and predictable - and easy to defend.

Lots to fix.

[southbankbornnbred]

No sensible person could want us to bin Potter already - that would be insane.

Almost everybody agreed the squad and club was a mess under late-era Moyes and then the Spanish Steve Bruce. There is SO much to fix and any new manager needs time, and some patience, in that situation.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t assess what Potter does or doesn’t achieve - even with players he probably wouldn’t have signed.

My biggest concern with him at this early stage, is that his teams have a tendency to be shot-shy. Especially at Chelsea. It’s not uncommon for a Graham Potter side to go an entire game with just one or two efforts on goal across 90 minutes.

I think we had three yesterday. One every half an hour. You won’t win, or draw, many games playing that way. And it is his design.

For all his emphasis on possession, Potter has to learn how to create more chances and more shots on goal. Even if it works, you won’t draw yourself into a European spot.

Ask most informed Chelsea fans (there aren’t many!), why he failed there and they’ll tell you the same thing. And he had relatively unlimited resources there.

He needs time and we should back him, sure. But something that he should be aware of from day one - and not six months into next season - is an expectation that his sides need more of a cutting edge. He lacked that at Chelsea, and it’s why they sacked him. Don’t bring that mistake here.