The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…

By: Erick | August 12th, 2007

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Final Result: West Ham United 0, Man City 2

There are so many things that I’d like to vent about after watching such a disappointing performance from West Ham that it has taken me a while to finally post on this blog and get my thoughts in order. Needless to say, not all is well at Upton Park after the loss and add to the fact that former West Ham player Paul Konchesky has decided to go public on his dislike of manager Alan Curbishley (more on that later). For what it’s worth, these are my thoughts:

The Good:

Robert Green, Dean Ashton, and Craig Bellamy’s legs. If not for Robert Green, Man City would have secured the win well into the first half. As usual he made some very outstanding saves and gave West Ham a chance to come back and get a point. Also, it was nice to finally see Dean Ashton come on the pitch after a serious injury, too bad he came in as a substitute in the 62nd minute and didn’t get enough time to put more shots on net. Lastly, Craig Bellamy’s legs did a lot of moving yesterday, running up and down the pitch tirelessly. Again, it’s too bad he wasn’t running anywhere near Man City’s 18 yard box.

The Bad:

Alan Curbishley and his decision making. I couldn’t make sense of anything he was trying to accomplish in attack. Several Man City players were left unmarked and he seemed to have no answer for it until the beginning of the 2nd half when he replaced Boa Morte with Matthew Etherington and put in Hayden Mullins for Lee Bowyer. Why was Lee Bowyer starting in the first place? No, no, no, NO!!! Is it just me or does anyone else think that Anton Ferdinand does not belong as a center back in the Premiership? He’s just not that good despite his pedigree.

The Ugly:

Where to begin? The ugliest by far was West Ham’s passing throughout the ENTIRE GAME!!! They could not string along consecutive passes for most of the game and several times they gifted the ball right to Man City players who came furiously down the pitch on counter attacks. Lee Bowyer’s play was especially ugly and watching Matthew Upson getting burned by Elano was very ugly as well. I don’t really blame Upson so much for it though, as there was no one in midfield to slow him down.

Here is what manager Alan Curbishley had to say after the game:

It was a massive disappointment. We started off poor and got worse as we went on.

City have come here and they’ve got one or two we weren’t sure about. Saying that, they’ve played a shape and a system that we knew they were going to play. They started better and their passing was miles ahead of ours.

The extra man in midfield began to tell and they were the most dangerous in the first 15 - then they got their goal. From then on we were chasing the game. We needed a bit of a lift but we didn’t get one.

The substitutions? Well we looked laboured, tentative and City had started well. Hamann was dictating - strolling round the pitch really - so we had to make some changes. To be fair, for 15 minutes I thought we were going to get our way back in but it wasn’t to be.

The Ashton substitution - yes, Matty was terrorising their full back but they brought him off and put Onuoha there. I’ve apologised to one or two of them there for pulling them about and playing them out of position.

We were 1-0 down with 25 to go so what I was trying to do was leave the two centre-backs to deal with the two up front pushing both full-backs in to get on with it. If we got done 2-0 we got done 2-0. We had a decent chance to get back in the game but we didn’t take it.

It’s a massive disappointment - the things we’ve been looking at pre-season, we didn’t show any of that. Were City fitter? Well all I know is that the stats that came back from the Norwich game were the second best stats since I came to the club.

I think you can read into that that they kept the ball better. We were chasing. First 15 Elano was picking stuff up, Bianchi was bringing people into the game. We never got to grips with it at all. It was a classic away game for Man City. They got their goal in 15 minutes. We tried to break them down but never looked like doing it. then they get a goal on the break at the end.

It’s a massive disappointment for both players and fans. It’s come after the first game so we’ve got to get on with it and look forward to next week.

Did I say anything to Sven? I just said well done for the first half. I thought that the first half won them the game. When you think about the start they got, they’ve come here and the crowd are in full throttle and we’ve given them nothing.

We’ve not put them under pressure. It was everyone really. Every time we tried to get a pass together we couldn’t get two passes together.I’ve told them Greenie is the only one who can come out of this with any credit.

It was just a dreadful performance and the fans deserve better. We can’t carry on like that. It’s easy to say the season starts for the next game. We don’t play midweek which might be a blessing but we’ve got to play better than that up at Birmingham.

First game of the season and we’ve left everyone flat.