Sunderland v West Ham United: Match Thread

[irving boleyn]

Our better players were injured, their replacements were poor substitutes.

It was a toothless midfield and a defeat was easily predictable.

Nothing to moan about...the starters were overall pretty average,as they have been all season.

We werent "not up for it" "disinterested" or all those other cliches used to avoid admitting we aint yet good enough.

That eleven (without Collins,Noble Diame Carroll or O'Brien) will find it difficult to win a match of any kind..

Is Sam at fault? I cant think of any other selections which would have strengthened us,the midfield in particular.

Just got to hang in there,guys.

[Morocco Mole]

We werent "not up for it" "disinterested" or all those other cliches used to avoid admitting we aint yet good enough.

Collison in particular strolled through that first half.

Didn't press the ball, failed to track his man on several occasions and generally lacked effort and aggression.

I was watching him closely. While simultaneously climbing the walls and kicking the cat up in the air....

[the fix]

We were poor today.

Its not the first time we have been poor on the road, not this season, not this century and not the first time in our history.

Get over it. Its the West Ham way. In 45 years this is the West Ham I have been brought up, conditioned and told to follow. No Olympic stadium, magical Italian or Argentinian strikers, nothing will EVER change that.

This is West Ham. We are not a top club. We'll lose to Sunderland one week and beat Manure the next.

Its all part of the ride, from birth to death.

Beautiiful.

[richiepap]

Fair enough.

But I bet you any money that my posts even if its one or two West Ham fans I've saved from having a blazing row with the Missus or getting tanked up with 10+ pints.I guaranteed there be hammers up & down the land saying that 'Cardiff is a diamond'.

Richiepap,whats your opinion that defeat match threads hit 50/60+ pages & wins or draws only get around the 30 pages?

Why is that?

Because people don't need to get a good feeling out of their system I do understand what you're saying though, and to a certain extent I agree with you.

However, maybe people should be encouraged more to rant at the team on here because it doesn't actually hurt anyone. Unless a player stupidly finds themselves in here. But otherwise it's generally cathartic I think. If they start calling individuals on here out then it's going a bit far, but it's good to vent and get it out of your system! Maybe if people are made to feel wrong for doing it here they'll find a way of getting it out their system somewhere else. Like having a blazing row with the missus, or sinking 10+ pints.

If someone is of that persuasion though they'll generally find some excuse to do it I reckon. Anyway, once it's all calmed down then rationality kicks in. In a few weeks time this will still be a rubbish result, but the emotion will be gone.

This sounds like more than just a rubbish result though, the performance and away form in general seem a bit limp. Somehow we seem to maintaining our position in the table, so thankfully other teams are worse than us. I'm sure we'll be fine, and even if we're not it's not the end of the world. I'm sparing a thought for those that spent time and money on this though.

[MrHammer73]

Big game against QPR next week now...Harry will be desperate to have one over us so they will be committed for sure.

How do we counter this?

Well the midfield three of Noble,Nolan & Diame which served us well at the start of season have to do that again. Nolan especially has tailed off badly. Worryingly that's what he did at Newcastle. The first half of the season he was impressive, second half he was not so good. Now he is 2 years older so he wont get any better.

I think we will happy this time next week but we need a new left back by then to be sure of that.

[danm79]

Haven't read all pages yet but sitting in a hotel bar in Sunderland about to eat

Well disappointed with today, think more because it was a 6am start and the weekend is gone.

Loved the atmosphere after we went two down, rubbish being up in the heavens and the general atmosphere seemed poor in the stadium

Have to say seeing the team arrive at the ground they didn't look up for this and would say the score line reflects the impression they gave with arriving at the ground

Quite a few locals are very surprised with the fact we never gave them a game for the conversations I had had in the last hour or so

[garage]

I was surprised to see we are still 11th with a game in hand. I'm not as disappointed now; in the grand scheme of things we are still doing very well.

[simonirons]

We were well **** in what was a terrible game of football. - Nolan & Diarra got mugged throughout.

[irving boleyn]

Did Potts have the option of hoofing that ball.....it seemed to pop up to him (facing his own goal ) chest high?

[american 'ammer]

It's creativity that's our issue, and what we actually do with the ball.

1 shot on target today up until the 75th minute, then another two came.

That's not good enough.

We've had 33 shots on target away from home this year in 10 games, and we've scored just 5 goals !!!!!!!!!!!

That's ****ing dire.

Joe Cole is supposed to help with some of that, but if he can't hold on to the ball and get some space it's hard to be creative. Also, we don't have finishers. Our only one is Nolan, and as has been much discussed, he has checked out for the time being.

[The Gibbins]

I didnt see the game as the club i always go didnt have the game which was surprising. But from the scoreline and the fact we had 2 shots on target up to the 70th minute against a very, very average side just says it all. Sounds like a very depressing performance.

Makes the QPR game that bit more important now!!!

[PrinceH]

Can't blame the defense today (besides young Potts mistake), the midfield was at fault as they did not protect the defense, neither gave the attack (Cole) anything of interest.
But three of them had hardly played a game for a year or so. Can't blame them. And Nolan was again invisible, unless he stod smiling at Sunderlands keeper. He should not be untouchable for Sam. Things went a bit better when Cole came into the middle, and Vaz Te came on. But donät blame the defense too much. Tomkins had a good game, Reid was as always good and Demel was without doubt my MOTM.

Let's beat ManU instead!

[Johnny Byrne's Boots]

Did Potts have the option of hoofing that ball.....it seemed to pop up to him (facing his own goal ) chest high?

Not really.

I'd like to see it again, but I thought Jussi was close enough to grab the ball instead of waiting for Potts to do something (what could he realistically have done?).

[Bill]

Disgusting performance from a side that didn't deserve the fantastic support we gave today. Away from home Allardyce has no plan B. Hoof it up to the lone striker who is at least 20 yards ahead of anybody else and hope something happens. When that fails change striker and repeat. People digging Cole out today should realise Messi would struggle to score with that service! Sunderland ran at us today and caused blind panic in our defence, whereas we walked forward, passed sideways and invariably passed back to Jaskaleinen. I lost count of the number of times we passed back to him from the half way line. Utterly pathetic, but FFS refuses to change. It doesn't matter if Chamakh or Paulista come in we won't win away with that performance.

[Mike420]

Did Potts have the option of hoofing that ball.....it seemed to pop up to him (facing his own goal ) chest high?

It wouldn't have been the easiest ball to hack away. Tbf if he had chested it and Jussi caught it, we'd be praising him for his composure. He was doing well up until that, I hope it doesn't knock his confidence too much because he has potential.

[NH Hammer]

Worst performance of the season....Vaz Te has to go,as useless as they come,and a terrible attitude too.

[ParisTheHammer]

Worst performance of the season....Vaz Te has to go,as useless as they come,and a terrible attitude too.

Talk about knee jerk reaction. So he is off form a bit, no reason to flog him.

[Major]

I dont know what all the fuss is about...

We lost away in the Premier League, **** happens. it don't really need analysing and it certainly does not need some of the reaction on here, which is frankly laughable. If we had not conceded that stupid second we could quite easily have got a point.

They were better than us today, we are mid table team at best and so are they , ****ing get over it. And that is better than i was hoping for at the start of the season!!!

Wouldn't surprise me if we go and beat the Mancs on Wed now.

And that drive back was a proper mare.....

[Bill]

Dream on Major! Lol. I don't mind losing so much. I'm used to it after 34 years. It's the way we played and the failure to learn lessons that gets me. We sang our hearts out for a team and manager who put zero in today.

[baritalia]

Moose saying on Twitter Collins has a Grade 3 hamstring injury... Very bad...