Crouchend_Hammer wrote:I must be the only one who didn't think he played that badly
Offered by far the most attacking threat we had, and at least ran at them and got them on the back foot at times. Made some bursts from deep to relieve a bit of pressure, won a couple of corners, set up Arnoutovic for our best chance
Fancy him to score against Bournemouth (if he keeps his place, which i don't think he will)
I though he was just about our best player in the first half (not saying a lot admittedly). By no means our worst offender over the 90.
Since we’re throwing blame about, Wilshere seems to be getting a bit of a free pass on here tonight. Utter crapola I thought.
I think that's the real problem for Antonio, people remember when he was our main man in attack. Objectively he's so-so at the moment but compared to a year or two ago he's total ****
when we are a team scrambling for any hint of drive in either the chaos of slav's system or the utilitarian sludge of moyes's, antonio can have his moments. pellegrini's system makes certain demands of a player and they don't gel with antonio's skillset one bit.
he's in the same boat as kouyate for me and the right time to sell would've been in the summer.
I only got to see the first half, but to me he was the only player out there who wasn't playing with enthusiasm and trying to give it his all. You can tell, because when he first started playing for West Ham that was one of his greatest attributes. I wanted him off after the first ten minutes, but that's not a realistic wish.
ShanghaiHammer wrote:
run down the wing a few times and fall over
fall over generally
lose possession and then fall over
I can't think of anything else
This is it. He does try but lacks basic intelligence to doing anything than use raw power to try and smash his way through. Unfortunately that isn't working for him and hasn't done for some time now.
I thought he did well first half too, DEFENSIVELY, same as Anderson both worked hard, tracked back unfortunately in my opinion (said this for a long time) Antonio doesn't have the finesse unfortunately, he got to the top by hard work and shear determination, that is enough for a mid to low level PL team but if we want to keep possession then he just doesn't have the ability to do that. He can get his head down and run but his ability just isn't there as a footballer.
Take Payet out of Antonio's West Ham Career, and he would have been sold the season after we signed him.
I liked the fact he was raw, powerful and cumbersome in the beginning, he had certain charm that we all found endearing, but the fact is, he hasn't improved in the last 3 seasons and by all accounts he has a bit of a chip on his shoulders.
However, I do hope that now we have a decent manager, and have bought in some quality players that play in his position, that he will get his head down and work hard on his game, I hope Pellegrini can coach some footballing intelligence into him.
He's definitely the new scapegoat around here, he can't catch a break.
I'll be the first to agree that technically he isn't great, a number of times in the second half he frustrated me by running into blind alleys and giving the ball away. I thought he was pretty good on the right wing in the first half.
People need to blame someone though, and it's easy to blame him. Trust the process
TommyHammer wrote:Powerhouse with bundles of pace, but under a Manuel Pellegrini side you also need bundles of technical ability, which Big Mick hasn't got.
The thing is, I don't think I've seen him use this pace since his first season with us. Since then he just walks around and occasionally put its a small jog - at best he will try to beat his man once a game.
Pub level technical ability and lazy. This just isn't based on yesterday.
WickfordHammer86 wrote:He's definitely the new scapegoat around here, he can't catch a break.
scapegoat
noun 1.
a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.
I can't see anyone blaming him for other peoples mistakes, merely his own, which is looking unfit for 18 months, jogging around looking disinterested until the ball comes to his feet and he wants to show everyone how good he is before losing the ball, most balls to his feet end up bouncing off his toe 5 yards in front of him.
Selfish player who even if he wanted to pass the ball to someone he probably couldn't.
We should have taken £10-15m from Palace, he got his comfortable new contract last year and now looks more interested in fashion shoots and e-sports banter with lower league footballers.
Antonio had the fortune of Payet providing him with first class tracked and signed deliveries at the start of his time with us. All he had to do was bundle the ball into the net with whatever part of his body he managed, which lets not forget he actually did do a few times.
The last time Antonio had a good game for us was the 3-0 v Palace (H) which was the actual game when Payet had been outed the day before and Antonio bagged 3 assists.
He looks like a professional boxer trying to play football, no wonder he is always out of breath and is constantly getting injured.
We had some great memories but we should have flogged him to the Nigels on top of Kouyate for a combined 30m.
his game is all about strength and speed. unfortunately he struggled yesterday.
he did not win many aerial duels, he was weak going against liverpool's defence. not many can go against van dijk but antonio struggled going against trent alexander, gomez and robertson!
a few runs but kept loosing the ball in the final third.
yarmalenko came in the last 20-30 mins of the game and looked much better.
