FAC3: Sheffield Wednesday 1 West Ham Utd 0 (08/01/12)

[bristolhammerfc]

"Even against an energetic, physical team on a poor pitch, we still ought to have had enough about us to ask questions of them. Unfortunately, the quality of our passing was not good enough and, ultimately, we have been dumped out of the cup in a game we wanted to win.

"You won't hear me saying the league is a priority and we must now focus on that. I wanted both and I'm disappointed we are not going to have a cup run.


This was the response of the Bristol City manager. A team fighting relegation

[the pink palermo]

What's is quite funny is when you look back at the start of this thread there are people who stuck up their preferred line-ups and there were some with barely a player over 18 in them. I remember laughing. I might have to go back and see if any of those people criticised Sams selection.

Head that one off at the pass ...think I used the words I expect we'll line up like....

Nobody criticised me for not picking Nolan though

[carnage]

It wasn't you I had in mind Pinky.
There was 1 side where I was old enough to be the Dad of virtually every player. Made me feel old.

[Smonnie]

Green

O'Brien
Tomkins
Reid
McCartney

Faubert
Noble
Nolan
Collison

Cole
Baldock

[Doc H Ball]

As for the starting XI, I'd rest Nolan and play:

......................Green

JOB.......Reid......Faye (if fit).....Linda

......Collison....Noble.......Papa

Sears............ Cole.............Baldy

Subs: Stech/Tommo//Hall/Moncs/Nouble

Happy with my suggested team. Better than the mish mash we got.

Trawling back, I've read a few quotes like 'I'd rather lose than draw'.

It seems quite easy to work out who went to the game and who stayed at home.

[hammer1975]

It wasn't you I had in mind Pinky.
There was 1 side where I was old enough to be the Dad of virtually every player. Made me feel old.

IIRC carnage you or bobby even posted before the game about the quality of the players picked for some teams...apologies if got you confused with someone else

still a lot of the pre-game teams that appear on these threads regularly include players such as tompkins, collinson, landsbury and o'Neill so i take them with a huge pinch of salt

i wanted to see collison play centrally, i didn't expect the team around him made of such weak stuff that we'd be unable to learn whether he could play well enough there to challenge for that position

my issue isn't that we should play a full strength side - i think it perfectly valid to try something different in the cup - but to change so much fundamentally undermines the performance of every player in the game. many will say that the game showed our squad is too weak but you could equally argue that it was such a disjointed side with the clear message from the manager it wasn't important so that it was incredibly unlikely to get any kind of a performance from any of the players

[irving boleyn]

Think everyone would have wanted to retain the spine.....

OK I can understand ...rest Coles legs and blood a goalkeeper, but Noble and Tomkins are at an age when they surely want to play every day.

[Tophammer]

Anyone see the trouble after the game around the corner of the away end? Some of ours came off well following an attempt ambush from a few wednesday. Obviously they've seen this slightly differently as per the internet http://www.owlstalk.co.uk/forums/index. ... re-police/

[Bobby Orangeboom]

IIRC carnage you or bobby even posted before the game about the quality of the players picked for some teams...apologies if got you confused with someone else

Not me, i said i'd rest Noble, Diop, Cole, Nolan et all & play GON, Carew, Lansbury etc..

[thejackhammer]

I look forward to the day that Paolo leads us out at The Boleyn (or wherever we may be) and we play slick, passing, one touch football, with Baldock and Hall upfront together and not a 6'3 horse or a mercenary in site.

[ManInTheIronsMask.]

Did anyone notice Peter Eustace was introduced at half time? The total lack of applause must have reminded him of his playing days.

[Hockley Hammer]

Despite the fact we were lucky to get to half time level, we created enough good chances in the second half to win the game comfortably. The fact we didn't is a problem we have had for some time now. It seems a long time ago since we were banging in 3 or 4 goals every few games.

This we would have won with our best side out - is football really that simple? Knowing West Ham we would have played our strongest side and got beat 3-0. I seem to rememeber that happening quite a few times over the years.

Sam put an adequate team out to beat Wednesday, poor finishing and the sad fact that certain players could not raise their game when it was there for them to make an impression cost us the match.

[EvilC]

I look forward to the day that Paolo leads us out at The Boleyn (or wherever we may be) and we play slick, passing, one touch football, with Baldock and Hall upfront together and not a 6'3 horse or a mercenary in site.

Apart from Paolo himself?

[w4hammer]

Anyone else think this merely highlights that not only are our back-up squad not very good, but that even alot of our "main" squad players are barely championship level - i:

Ruud Boffin ( ive barely seen him but whenever I have he's done nothing to make me think he's more than a very cheap plan c)
Joey O'Brien ( started brightly but appears to be running in sand- reached his level )
Winston Reid ( good @ championship level/ never proven in the prem)
George McCartney ( gets away with it in the championship/will get ruined in the prem)
Daniel Potts ( need alot of development and some stability around him)
Gary O'Neil ( came to us from a very ordinary 'boro- who were in the championship- probably ok at this level but too early to say after injury)
Jack Collison ( hasnt shown anything/much that makes me think he's in by reputation alone- doesnt tackle, pass well or get past anyone..)
Henri Lansbury ( frankly has been ****ing ***** since he started, cant think of anything much that makes him "prem" class)
Freddie Sears ( we all agree should be playing league one /championship at best)
Sam Baldock ( promising but way to early after injury/ in his career to tell..)
John Carew ( without doubt the worst signing of sam's (whole) career **** knows why he's still on the books)

I can see why Sam might have thought that side was good enough, but the reality it wasnt, in any area of the field.

If we dont get promotion this season, then Sam should REALLY cut this squad back to bare bones and start again.

[irving boleyn]

Agree with that and in addition Faye and Diop are just about managing at this level...another 1mph and they'll be by passed.

Good implements for promotion though.

[Upton Larks]

Good implements for promotion though.

“We have to start a whole rebuilding programme. [...] “We’re choosing a manager good enough to get us out of this division and capable of continuing once we’ve achieved that." David Gold.

I see plenty from Sam and our players on the former ("implements for promotion") but far, far less on the latter. Sam Baldock aside, where is this rebuilding programme? More like stop gaps and make dos.

[Hockley Hammer]

“We have to start a whole rebuilding programme. [...] “We’re choosing a manager good enough to get us out of this division and capable of continuing once we’ve achieved that." David Gold.

I see plenty from Sam and our players on the former ("implements for promotion") but far, far less on the latter. Sam Baldock aside, where is this rebuilding programme? More like stop gaps and make dos.

Doesn't it show just what a mess we were and the task Sam has. He has amasssed a squad made up of players like you say, Leicester have done it by throwing money at 'better' established players. to be joint top of the league, shows just what an achievement it is. The same kind of job McKay is doing at Cardiff. Why would a decent player really want to come here after the last few seasons?

Most people expected most of the dross from last year to go which it has. The moaners expected Green and Cole to go. Six months later we are joint top of the league. Everything is not perfect by a long way, but we are a few players away from being strong contenders for promotion.

One thing at a time. We are not going to go from being the worst club in the premier league to champions league contenders in two seasons.

[The Moth]

One thing at a time. We are not going to go from being the worst club in the premier league to champions league contenders in two seasons.

Nobody has suggested we should! But if it supports you're argument...

[Turns to Stone]

Building something for the future is easier said than done. Sam Baldock cost us £2m, Jordan Rhodes might well cost someone £6m by the end of this window and they're from the league below.

What Pards did with Marlon, NRC and Etherington/Zamora was rare. And was helped by Wimbledon going down the pan and by Spurs wanting Defoe, Carrick and Kanoute so badly. Apart from Tomkins we have nothing to barter with these days.

We lost 20 odd players last summer, if we'd replaced them all with up and coming/promising young players it could easily have cost us £25m. Instead, Allardyce has spent a bit of money (some came from Parker sale, some from the Daves) but largely it's been loans and freebies. His option is to give youth a chance...again, whilst I don't necessary disagree with this philosophy, and I'm desperately hopeful for some of our young lads to make it, but I just don't think that in Lee, Spence, Nouble, Sears, Potts and Montano we're looking at Noble, Johnson, Defoe, Collison, Tomkins and Carrick.

If they were ready and good enough, they'd be playing. They're not quite ready.

How exactly do you build a young, progressive team to get out of this division slowly when you have no money and your youth players aren't quite good enough, when you know that every season you spend in the second tier, you're losing money and you're running the risk of your better players (or even your hot young managerial property whoever that may be) leaving?

[w4hammer]

How exactly do you build a young, progressive team to get out of this division slowly when you have no money and your youth players aren't quite good enough, when you know that every season you spend in the second tier, you're losing money and you're running the risk of your better players (or even your hot young managerial property whoever that may be) leaving?

..that, sir, is the art of management! I think you're overlooking one thing, a lot of these makeweights sam has brought in/kept have cost us a LOAD of money - like the earlier chap said- not many sides can boast Carew as a third choice striker - my mum would have a better scoring rate than that useless lump- we shouldn't be waiting until the end of the season to realise that he's picked up too many cheap and past it players- and if, if we manage to get up, we dont want to be buying in July--nows the time for G&S to TRULY put their hands in their pockets and strengthen where needed- and no, we're not leicester where they basically bought a new team in a month- we need three/four decent players in total - nibbling around with bids which we keep raising/holding has never worked in the past for us. Pick who we want; inform the other manager; bring the ****ing bacon home