A balanced view on the watford game
Okay first things first. I have been to UP countless times and then yesterday was the first time I went to see us at the OS. The stadium itself is fantastic, I was sat in the upper east stand and I the pictures do not do it justice sight lines were quality and for 30 minutes of that game the atmosphere for just a standard game was better than anything at UP over the last 10 or so years IMHO it was absolutely superb and its starting to really piss me off at how negative some of fans have become (More social media then on here).
On to the game and the stands and its where it all started going wrong. Between the 30-35th minute sitting vs standing came in to fruition again and the stewards who were very and poorly timed kicked out about 15 people in the lower east stand now while the stewards were in the process of getting involved the fans decided to start chanting at the stewards and thole situation escalated which is why so many people got kicked out. Then what started as one stand booing the stewards turned to half a stadium booing the stewards for a good 2 or 3 minutes. Now I know some may not agree but for me this was the turning point in the game. As it looked like our players heads dropped for a couple mins then we were quickly stung with a deflected goal. After all you can't tell me that half a stadium booing isnt gonna affect the team they don't know what the fans are booing at all they know that there own fans are booing at 2-0.
After the first it was all downhill from there. After what a cracking start with some of the best football ive seen us play us and an incredible atmosphere to boot. It went downhill from that moment. Suddenlt we conceded and it was like a double whammy then for some unknown reason Collins decided to ignore Adrians shout and somehow didn't see him coming even though he was looking at him and decided instead of heading it out was gonna head it stupidly over adrian. 2-2 before half time the stadium went silent and the atmosphere went from incredible to hostile.
Second half we were plain and simply caught out on the counter and as we conceded a 3rd and 4th more and more fights broke out. Being honest why the stewarding has been poor. Unfortunately many of our fans are going to the game pissed up and looking to start fights and it needs to be sorted ASAP.
To finish off just some notes on a few individual players. Adrian is key to the way we play going forward and needs his best defence in front of him.
Collins, Reid, Byram and Kouyate were absolutely dreadful and apart from Byram the other 3 have been poor a few times. I don't know what has happened to Reid but since he came back against chelsea last season hes been awful. Alot of people will say Collins had the worst game but believe me apart from collins mistake Reid was absolutely dreadful. Lost count of the amount of times he lost his man and wasn't tracking his player, was constantly out of position and wasn't up for the physical battle at all. Byram was skinned over and over and Kouyate should be outright dropped for a few games because his passing like it always has been was dreadful he doesn't know how to win a tackle properly and his positional sense is awful and his workrate which used to be his best attribute is now non exsitent he was constantly strolling round the pitch and leaving noble (who unlike some i thought had a good game and our first coming from him winning the ball like he did so much all game) compltely overrun for the whole second half. I've long been of the opinion hes a center back playing defensive mid and its no wonder in my eyes that his best performances in a west ham shirt have been at center back. There were some positives and some negatives I do think we will get better but I do feel Bilic throwed in to many players who havent had enough game time together at once and didn't rectify the issue when Payet and Lanzini tired.
Sorry for the long post guys just needed to vent a bit! Hopefully you all read the whole thing!
- Read more about A balanced view on the watford game
- 11 comments
- Log in or register to post comments