West Ham London - 1 Aston Villa - 1 The Post Match Thread.

[SamTheMouse]

With your system, Watkins is the player you need, Sendō.

You can have him for 100 million. You'll have money to burn when you flog Rice.

[Hookeysmith]

DSTV/Mnet carries 90% pf premier league games live.
Most Hotels in Mauritius have DSTV as their main satellite channel, if you are still there on Sat you should pick up the game. 

Thanks buddy but I will be back at VP by sat

[olaftab]

Still great holiday thanks

It must be lovely being there just now, lucky man and enjoy.

[olaftab]

With your system, Watkins is the player you need, Sendō.

You can have him for 100 million. You'll have money to burn when you flog Rice.

No no. They need Bailey and Chambers. Should be able to pick up both for circa £40M.

[brontebilly]

Well in the end I think that was one of those matches where both teams a probably satisfied with a point but disappointed not to have taken all three.

West Ham started brightly enough, but a bit of huffing and puffing aside didn't really create a great deal. Then it's the classic sucker punch of your opponent scoring with their first attack. In truth though for me that goal underlined why West Ham are having problems this season, and it's the tale of two opposing recruitment policies at full back and the mentalities of the teams. Villa having added Moreno after already signing Digne last season have a left back looking to get forward wide on the overlap and put in good crosses. West Ham, satisfied with one half decent season from Coufal who cost peanuts have not strengthened, and so had the centre back Kehrer nominally at right back, scared seemingly to move away from the comfort of the penalty box and giving Moreno plenty of space to line up a cross.

Still, at the least West Ham did not crumble like they did down at Brighton last week, and were rewarded after a sustained period of pressure with a clumsy penalty from Bailey after Paqueta had had his shot cleared off of the line.

Much of the rest of West Hams play has been typical of this season. Some great play down the wings by Benrahma or Bowen that in the end lead to nothing, normally because there was no-one in the box each time that Bowen skinned Moreno (Ings seemed a yard off of the pace to me - have you lot sold us a dud there?) or because Benrahma did too much like he normally does, shortly before ballooning a shot over the bar. Still, it's testament to these two that Emery took both of your full backs off before the end. Moyes of course would never dream of doing such a thing, expecting the game to change itself. Indeed, it was the 76th minute when he took Paqueta off for Fornals, a like for like sub and only because Paqueta was looking like he might pick up a second yellow, and then the 86th minute before he swapped out Danny "ten touches all game" Ings - but for Cornet, and NOT Scamacca.

You can understand the frustration of Paqueta, a player who is best utilised with good players in front of him, moving around, making runs and creating space. Instead he always gets the ball with Sideways Pass Rice and Soucek behind him, the big Czech only ever driving forward looking to get onto the end of a cross. So he can do nothing but ping balls out wide to Bowen or Benrahma. Then upfront we've got a lone striker who was only sold to us because his former club didn't consider him suitable to play the lone striker role, one that Scamacca is even less suited to than Ings. Still, come the end when Emery swaps out a striker for a defender and makes it clear Villa are settling for a point, why not chuck in Scamacca AND Cornet, sacrificing either Soucek or one of the centre backs? That sort of negative mentality for me is a big reason why West Ham have gone from challenging for European spots in back to back seasons to battling relegation. It filters down from the top and infects the whole team.

I suppose at the least the players showed some fight this game. First Paqueta hacking down McGinn and then Rice getting in the face of Buendia when he was screaming like his leg was hanging off only to jump up and start sprinting again 5 minutes later. That's not to condone foul play, but at home in a relegation fight you want to feel like your players are giving their all - something we didn't see last week vs Brighton.

Villa for their part look much improved with mostly the same players as earlier in the season. When they got the ball down and moved it around they played some good football, passing freely though our static, supposedly world class midfield. The difference, once again, in having a progressive, forward thinking manager, and the reason why you lot are thinking about whether you could qualify for Europe despite a poor start.

I thought Pacqueta was useless to be honest. Looks half a yard short for PL football. Skipping off down the tunnel after he was hooked too, not a great sign for a marquee signing. Tactically Moyes was all over the shop, neither of our CBs like being pressed from the front. The snail like Ings made it very easy for them.

Usually Villa get physically dominated by the WHU midfield so it was a surprise without Kamara that Luiz and McGinn won that battle easily. Both your wingers were very dangerous.

[sendō WHU]

I'd say good luck mate, but I'd love it if West Ham went down sorry*.

Don't worry, I said the same about you lot on KUMB when you were struggling a couple of seasons ago. I don't think certain people have ever forgiven me. 

With your system, Watkins is the player you need, Sendō.

You can have him for 100 million. You'll have money to burn when you flog Rice.

Yes he's the sort of player Moyes loves. Rumour was last summer we were after him for £50m, but I couldn't see us bidding that much for him and I couldn't see Villa being willing to sell their main striker for that little.

Tactically Moyes was all over the shop, neither of our CBs like being pressed from the front. The snail like Ings made it very easy for them.

Usually Villa get physically dominated by the WHU midfield so it was a surprise without Kamara that Luiz and McGinn won that battle easily. Both your wingers were very dangerous.

Yeah Moyes never likes pressing from the front. Your defenders and Martinez were practically asking to be pressed first half, yet we stood off, stayed narrow and static and made it easy for Villa to pass through us and down the wing. Unfortunately it's been a long time since we dominated anyone in midfield, which I believe is a big part of our problems.

[Ads]

Why has Rice dropped off so much this season?

[Risso]

Same with Soucek, a couple of years ago he looked to be the complete midfielder. Now he just looks completely crap.

[dave.woodhall]

I'd say good luck mate, but I'd love it if West Ham went down sorry*.

Don't worry, I said the same about you lot on KUMB when you were struggling a couple of seasons ago. I don't think certain people have ever forgiven me. 

With your system, Watkins is the player you need, Sendō.

You can have him for 100 million. You'll have money to burn when you flog Rice.

Yes he's the sort of player Moyes loves. Rumour was last summer we were after him for £50m, but I couldn't see us bidding that much for him and I couldn't see Villa being willing to sell their main striker for that little.

Tactically Moyes was all over the shop, neither of our CBs like being pressed from the front. The snail like Ings made it very easy for them.

Usually Villa get physically dominated by the WHU midfield so it was a surprise without Kamara that Luiz and McGinn won that battle easily. Both your wingers were very dangerous.

Yeah Moyes never likes pressing from the front. Your defenders and Martinez were practically asking to be pressed first half, yet we stood off, stayed narrow and static and made it easy for Villa to pass through us and down the wing. Unfortunately it's been a long time since we dominated anyone in midfield, which I believe is a big part of our problems.

Don't play the innocent; you said a lot more about us.

[brontebilly]

Same with Soucek, a couple of years ago he looked to be the complete midfielder. Now he just looks completely crap.

Or was he just a Fellaini lite in that his goals were masking very average midfield play. Rice has his head up his ass about his next move I'd suggest.

[Lastfootstamper]

Rice is still very good. He might be suffering from a downturn in form from playing in a struggling side, but that shouldn't detract from the fact he's been an outstanding PL midfielder for years now.

[Villa Lew]

Dermot on Ref Watch reckons it was a pen, which has now convinced me even more it wasn't.

[sendō WHU]

Same with Soucek, a couple of years ago he looked to be the complete midfielder. Now he just looks completely crap.

Or was he just a Fellaini lite in that his goals were masking very average midfield play. Rice has his head up his ass about his next move I'd suggest.

Yes I think it's a bit of this. Soucek is great at running around a lot, making tackles and them bombing up the pitch to get onto the end of crosses. His engine is great, and coupled with Rice it made us very combative. However he doesn't offer a lot else. He doesn't have much skill and his passing is poor. Rice seemed to think he could be an all round box to box, Gerrard type midfielder, so for a while it was Soucek holding back more whilst Rice went forward, which didn't work. To be fair, Soucek has been mostly better of late, but the midfield three of him, Rice and Paqueta doesn't really work because they don't really compliment each other, and all three want to play deep too much.

Plus Rice seems to have got ahead of himself and seems to be looking elsewhere.

[sendō WHU]

Don't play the innocent; you said a lot more about us.

That calling us "kit stealers" is cringe (it is), and I think I criticised how easily your players all followed Grealish in chucking themselves on the floor at every opportunity back then (you did) from memory.

This is like the wife bringing up things I've done in the past whenever we have an argument. 

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

Yeah but...yeah but...
Isn’t it time that you resumed blowing your babbles?