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Plenty of positives for West Ham despite Everton defeat

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Andy CarrollSo this is what it feels like to lose…been a while. The defeat to Everton has sent West Ham spiralling all the way down to 6th in the Premier League, but the defeat was laden with positives.

Firstly without five first-team players, not squad players, not fringe players but five players who start week-in-week-out, we went to Goodison Park; a notoriously difficult place to go especially for West Ham, seeing as we haven’t won there for almost a decade and we can count ourselves incredibly unfortunate not to get a point out of the game, lord knows our 2nd half showing deserved some recompense.

Secondly the performance of Mauro Zarate; Enner Valencia and Diafra Sakho have stolen all the headlines so far this season with their scintillating form and of course that has meant Zarate has had to play 2nd or even 3rd fiddle, however his cameo at Goodison showcased what a talent he is; his ability to create space, lead defenders a merry dance, his dribbling skills and of course his ability to finish; injected some much needed oomph into what had been till then a rather dry display from the away side . So impressive was his performance that he might just keep out one of Sakho/Valencia for the visit of Newcastle next Saturday, nice to have competition for places isn’t it?

Thirdly Andy Carroll got 90 minutes; now he didn’t have his finest performance and his influence on the game waned as the minutes ticked by, but considering he’s effectively having his preseason now getting 90 minutes in a game a game which did turn out to be rather intense, tetchy and somewhat controversial will have done our big no. 9 the world of good. In full flow he’s almost unplayable and it’ll be exciting to see how he links up with our other strikers.

What a foursome of forwards we now have and that’s not even mentioning Carlton Cole.

Newcastle United unbelievably are now above us in the league (I do wonder if sackpardew.com are still going strong?) They’re on a great run and will prove stern opposition however we can go into that fixture still confident despite a frustrating last couple of results.

We’re experiencing what might almost qualify as our first rough patch of the season, but with the players we have to come back and the goals we’ve always got in our locker there is still cause for optimism. 6th in the league and yet we’re frustrated, blimey we have come a long way.

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3 comments

  • Johnny Mac says:

    Mr Editor. I am sick of your censorship of this site with notification “Your comment is awaiting moderation”. I don’t think I’ll bother trying to contribute anymore. Talk about up yourselves!

    • Johnny Mac says:

      West Ham that was quite a naive performance at Everton. You could have, and should have won that game, because although with the so called mighty AC in our starting line-up and not being able to get 1 shot on target on Everton’s goal in the 1st half, and although you had a poor 1st half, you only went into half time 1 down and came back transformed in the 2nd half to equalize. That was pure class from Zarate, as soon as he came on, that was the class West Ham had been missing up until that stage in the game, and with Sakho, Valencia, Song, Kouyate & Downing all out, well we badly missed those guys. Andy Carroll just does not cut it for me. He just does not fit into what this team has become, anymore, and any decent goal keeper such as Tim Howard, who is in total control of his final third, had AC & Co totally snuffed out. As the game progressed I just knew AC wasn’t going to score, no, after Zarate’s real class goal in getting us back on level pegging, we were in total control of that game and were looking the much more likely of the 2 sides to get the winner. We should have respected the point more, we got caught on the break when we were well on top and were really looking like going on to win that game. Maybe we tried too hard to win it, instead of trying to protect the 1 point more that we were on at that stage. We were pushing up too high and were bound to get caught on the counter, which we did. I’m sorry, but Vaz Te just isn’t Premier League material, good Championship player, but Premier League? No, and once Everton did snatch the lead back, you could see that there was no way they were going to let that lead slip again, especially with being at home. Carlton really is looking past it in this league now, and with Nolan & AC back in the team there is a familiar look of the old predictability about West Ham again that is easily snuffed out by class sides such as Everton. I won’t say Martinez put one over on Sam, because from being on the side lines there was nothing Sam could do when a team are not listening to him. I’d forgotten we even had Zarate on the bench, so that was a master stroke in bringing him on, which would have paid off only we pushed up too much leaving ourselves exposed, and against teams like Everton, well you just don’t do that and get away with it. The attitude from the team was great and with the team we fielded, did really well. I’ve never been a fan of country before club, and when the country takes out one of your best players to injury such as Downing, then I couldn’t give a damn if we returned to the old days when there were no international breaks and the country had to plead with the clubs who pay their wages, to release their players. It just shows that the slight edge that a team needs to get up in the Premiere League, being in West Ham’s case Sakho & Valencia, along with Song, Downing & Kouyate was badly missed against Everton with the signing of at least Song, with maybe Jenkinson & Amalfitano being made permanent West Ham players a priority, if we are to make it into the European qualifier places, if we are to give West Ham a team to push on with European football competition membership before and while going into the new stadium. Great attitude from the players, a bit naive in not respecting the point enough, but we can all see which team players need to be in the starting line-up, & AC, Nolan & Cole just aren’t there anymore. Surely Sam has to acknowledge that??? And after AC’s performance yesterday well we’ll be really lucky if we can offload a man whose England career is all washed up at the age of 25. Maybe, just maybe, Newcastle will take him back, one can only hope? Sign someone else in January. After our great start to the season, he just doesn’t seem to gel with this team anymore. Collins is one of the exceptions, and just cannot be blamed for their winning goal, he was left alone and exposed at the back and his professional foul almost paid off, but with so many men out injured the team did really well. You get those games, tough luck, now recover and get over it! And by the way, I still think the best team lost yesterday, as Lukaku’s goal was offside and the score could have been anything from a 1-0 West Ham win to a 1-1 draw, and I think a 2-1 defeat was a bit harsh on West Ham!!! Hey, and lay off singing “we’re gonna win the league” C’mon, I think that was a bit strange hearing even Saints fans singing that, let alone us? To do that we’d need Costa, Messi, Zabaletta & Chelsea’s Cortouis or Germany’s national keeper in goal and that ain’t going to happen. We only have Premier League games to contend with, Everton have the Europa and still beat us. No, our squad has a long to come before holding its own in the Europa and win Premier League games such as Everton are doing!

  • Johnny Mac says:

    Hey, you make it sound like this is our first loss in 12 games and all nice and rosey with our performances. Spurs & Man Utd have done us. Southampton made mincemeat of us, and now Everton have done us. Come on, that is 4 defeats. We have only won 5 out of 12 games, so don’t get too carried away. There is still only a fine between our current position and mid to bottom half mediocrity again, and if Carroll plays every week from now then that is where we will return too. Sam is getting too much credit from these new signings that were thrust upon him.

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