Firstly I want to state in this article that the result at Burnley on Tuesday night was magnificent, I’ve been a little frustrated with a media in-different with a result that was achieved against a Burnley team top of the Championship who barely made any changes to their winning formula and a West Ham team thrown together with 9 changes from the draw at Swansea City. If we’d have lost the media would’ve slaughtered Sam Allardyce; we won and it’s met with a wall of silence…wonder if Sam’s last name was Allardicci whether things would’ve been different?
To get through to the Capital One Cup quarterfinals with a mish-mash of a team, away to the league leaders of the Championship was an incredible effort from Sam and his experimental side. The tie with Burnley highlighted two facets of this current Hammers team; firstly this team is very difficult to break down; even in the first half when Burnley had all the ball and were knocking it about nicely they didn’t really look like scoring and they struggled to create clear-cut opportunities. The other aforementioned facet is that this current Hammers team is struggling massively for goals, even with Carlton Cole and Modibo Maiga leading the line we very rarely genuinely threatened and I have my doubts that the goals would’ve come without the aid of the penalties.
This situation must be rectified in January; the powers that be have got to spend and spend big if need be to sign at least two new strikers, our current crop simply aren’t good enough and come January (if it’s possible to actually find a club willing to take him) Maiga will definitely be on his merry way and though its early days and he’s still struggling for fitness I’d be amazed if Carlton does enough between now and the new year to earn himself an extension.
The 2-0 win at Burnley was our sixth clean sheet in 12 games in all competitions; so clearly defensively we’re sound and yet it’s disappointing when you realise that in the three goalless draws we’ve had in the league a solitary strike on each occasion would’ve been enough to secure victory.
In January this goal scoring problem must be solved and solved once and for all; no freebies, no loans, proper strikers that actually score goals and tend to stay fit over the course of a season are what’s needed! That’s not asking too much is it?
Burnley made 5 changes
You will need to make a lot more effort in scoring goals from open play as you won’t have a kindly disposed ref to gift you a “penalty” every week. Lots of lovely tippy tappy passing won’t get you very far either – lots of possession with no end product makes Sam an unhappy boy.
Just you worry about getting to the Premiership within the next 50 years, before getting consumed by a sense of injustice. We only put the reserves out!
FIVE CHANGES, The whole of the midfield was different for Burnley.
Sorry but I have read some rubbish about WHU this week.
A draw would have been a fair result.
Ok Burnley fans I got it wrong 5 changes…we made 9 and played 48 hours earlier so not sure what your point is. We deserved to win as we stepped it up in the 2nd half and Burnley clearly couldn’t cope with it hence conceeding the penalties.