The game at Stoke City put a bit of a damper on our recent run of good results. It was such a frustrating afternoon, and I maintain that the score did not reflect the game—but that is irrelevant. Lost points are lost points.
I can’t even get that mad at the players. Like a true deflectionist, I’m mad at everyone else. We are now at a point in the season where it’s not just our results which are important; the results and actions of those around us are equally as crucial to the outcome of our season. With that in mind, here’s who I’m blaming for our rather disappointing weekend.
Chelsea. As a whole entity.
Chelsea annoy me in general, but in theory, they should be able to put a youth squad or a convoy of highly trained badgers out against Aston Villa and comfortably get a result. Instead, Aston Villa rather deservedly won 1-0 and shockingly shot straight up to tenth—dropping West Ham down to 12th in the process.
I presume anyone who had money on Aston Villa to win that game is now using their winnings to buy a yacht.
Normally I’d love a Chelsea game that involved two Chelsea players and Jose Mourinho getting sent off (who wouldn’t?) but it’s hard to enjoy these tidbits of football when the end result – although genuinely amusing and providing another classic Mourinho reaction – ends up penalizing your team.
Newcastle United.
As above. How does a team 21 points better off than Fulham with – admittedly some questionable form of late – drop the ball against a struggling bottom of the table side? We’ve hit the point with Fulham where I can no longer be bothered to memorise the names of those involved in their merry-go-round approach to managerial staff, and every game I see them play I fully expect them to lose – yet Newcastle were unable to break them down, and Fulham managed to earn an extremely valuable 3 points – leaving them just 7 points behind us.
The bottom half of the table is still so close that a simple sneeze could send a team in tenth straight back into the relegation zone, and knowing Fulham are but three wins behind us is not a terribly comfortable feeling- even if we do have a game in hand.
Craig Pawson.
The standard of referees this season is as shocking as Aston Villa’s win at Chelsea. Had we been correctly given a penalty at 2-1 down, we’d have seen a different outcome. Even regular fence-sitters BBC Sport agree that the decision not to award a penalty for handball against Marc Muniesa was wrong and that “replays showed [it] merited a spot-kick that would have brought the visitors level.”
It was another game marred by a bad decision. It’s not to say we certainly would have won had we had that penalty, but wouldn’t it be nice to know we weren’t impeded in any way, and given a shot at fairness?
The above serve as a reminder to the club that while we’ve been through both good and bad this year, the bad bits have left us in the position where— as much as we hate to admit it— our future is not entirely in our own hands. We are dependent on other team’s results, and must rely on the top 8 to win games against those below us.
We need for referring decisions to be correct; not just in our games, but in the games around us as well—as we are certainly not the only team who have been affected by bad refereeing.
Hopefully we can grab the points we need – but just as importantly, we must hope and pray that the results of other teams are ever in our favour.
To a person who made a comment, being RVT 12, in an earlier article titled “Allardyce Out!”re; http://foreverwestham.com/2014/03/blog-topics/allardyce-out/comment-page-1#comments , when he stated that he now, no longer enjoys watching a West Ham FC football match, and said “I no longer enjoy being at the Boleyn to watch my team play and driving home seeing that we are 10th (now 12th) in the league doesn’t make up for that..” I totally understand and sympathize with you, in that West Ham under Sam, play a totally different game. It is a game geared only for survival in a league that has been structured by the FA. Before the FA came along and hijacked all of the teams who used to be members of the old Football league’s 1st Division, there was less pressure on clubs to win at all costs. The players were not paid as much as the absurd amounts they are paid now. The value of a club battling out a hard fought drawn match was more greatly rewarded with the 1 point gained for a drawn match feeling like a fair result. Now, & with 3 points for a win, if a club losses the lead in a match and the game ends up drawn, then the 2 lost points feels as though the game has been lost. The old Football League’s 1st Division used to consist of 22 clubs, with only 2 being relegated, so with just 2 points for a win & 1 for a draw, and after 42 matches, it was usually only the 2 or maybe 3 clubs that were playing really badly, who got involved in a relegation battle. Now with 10 – 11 clubs involved annually per season in a relegation battle, the football cannot have the same level of enjoyment that it used to have. Football is supposed to be fun, not some excruciating experience of high pressure with everyone’s hearts in the mouths for every match with everyone worrying & wondering if we are going to survive & escape relegation. I have an ethos in life, and that is, that if something that you really enjoy doing in life stops becoming fun? then stop doing it. This applies to music, sport recreation or whatever. If whatever you used to enjoy doing in life stops becoming fun, then who needs it? Life is meant to be happy, or life is meant to be a dance, not a dirge. If you feel that Sam Allardyce’s style of making West Ham play, has turned your life into a dirge, then stop doing it. Look, I’ve given up on worrying & wondering as to if West Ham are going to survive. Life is meant to be fun. I’ve sort of switched off a bit from the annual relegation battle & am more into the fun of researching which players will be playing and the prospects for each of the 32 countries that will be at Brazil 2014 & so on. 2 games ago West Ham only needed a lousy couple of wins from their remaining 11! To survive. Now, after 2 straight losses(Sam had the winning team of Adrián, Demel, McCartney, Taylor, Collins, Tomkins, Jarvis, Noble, Cole, Nolan, Downing, so why did Sam change not 1, not 2, but 3 players from a winning team??), we play Man Utd next, & it is still only a lousy 2 wins needed from 9 games left, to survive. I’m sorry but all of this high pressure, FA induced crap is getting boring, along with their pathetic match officials sometimes horrendous incorrect decisions on match days. The amount of money they throw at this game while people all around the world do not have enough money to buy food to eat. I reckon FIFA, UEFA & the FA should collaborate & install a wages cap. I mean I’d be quite happy to receive £10,000 per week in wages, and I’m sure a lot of Hammers fans would mind 10 grand a week either. I reckon that is the most that players should be paid per week, and I reckon the running of the top flight would be better back under the control of the Football League, AND bring back standing on the terraces. Now those days were fun. We need more fun & less high pressure in the game that we all used to love!!!, so if anyone is to blame Emily, I feel it is the people who structure the rules & their financial set up of the game.
West Ham have to play 3 games in 9 days, starting this Saturday. Surely we can win 1 of those 3, leaving just 1 more win to get from the remaining 6 games, as with 9 clubs all being within 7 points of each other in the bottom half, and with so many of these clubs all playing each other, then it surely is looking like 36 points will be enough to stay up. Had there not been 9 clubs in this position, with West Ham currently at the top of these 9, then West Ham could have been in a far worse position, but with all of these clubs beating each other & falling over each other so to speak, then we should be OK. It’s totally out of our control, but we will get there, survive, and enjoy the world cup. Sam should be planning to fix these problems now for next season, that Spence highlighted. If a team wins, then stick to that starting 11, that’s what I say. COYI
Yes JB , good post ,and much of it hits the nail on the head .Sadly the genie is out of the bottle and there is not the collective will at the top of the game to right the wrongs in the game . There is a widening gulf between the supporters and the players /managers/owners of the clubs they support.Even the top clubs are running with huge amounts of debt ,much of it concealed by each club’s hierarchy as interest free loans from wealthy owners etc.Sadly the game is run in a dishonest way and increasingly played in a dishonest way . We must all still care about football or we wouldn’t all waste our time commenting about it as we do , but i do wonder where it will end up ?
Why oh why did Allardyce bring Reid back in when Tomkins & Collins had been excellent throughout the winning run. Poor management im afraid and a kick in the teeth for Collins who had been excellent. Reid had, by his standards, a poor match and looked edgy and slow. Throw in poor/average performances by Nocerino, Diame (again !!) Downing, Demel and McCartney and we got a bloody nose at a time when we simply shouldn’t have, even at Stoke, a hard place to go. Hugely disappointing result.
give it a rest, you will have crying next!!!!
doesn’t matter what system or who is
playing. it is nobodys’ fault but BFS!!!
Thanks Peter, & when I said totally out of our control, in my follow up comment. I meant out of us, as fans control, as yes I agree with you in that there is a widening gulf between the club, it players & us, as fans. In that the club don’t seem to give a damn as to what we want. We didn’t want our ground sold, they went and blood* well sold it. They don’t give a damn that our dads took us to these games at the Boleyn in the 60s & for some even further back in time. No, along come the 2 Ds & do what they want. We wanted Sam out, they wouldn’t listen, and now we have to put up with this excruciating crap being played & they still won’t listen, so yes, everything has been out of us fans control, including the money they have wasted in the past causing them to have to sell our ground. Still, it could be worse, we could have ended up being run by a couple of twats like Hull & Cardiff have, who know nothing about the history of the clubs they have bought and the fans they have inherited. And what does the FA do about it ? Nothing, says I, being one unrepentant Hammer