1 hour ago, Argo said:

Sometimes choas ball can be entertaining, other times it isn't.

I found pre lockdown Lampard ball entertaining, didn't (for the most part) find what Poch was serving up entertaining in the slightest.

You have to be kidding? You didn't enjoy the 4-4 Man City, 4-3 Man Utd, 3-2 Newcastle & Forest amongst others?

Give me those games against some of the dross served up in recent weeks.

6 minutes ago, Nibs said:

You have to be kidding? You didn't enjoy the 4-4 Man City, 4-3 Man Utd, 3-2 Newcastle & Forest amongst others?

Give me those games against some of the dross served up in recent weeks.

ditto. 

Maybe being a short bloke i just prefer a good old tear up rather than a jab and parry type of contest

11 minutes ago, Nibs said:

You have to be kidding? You didn't enjoy the 4-4 Man City, 4-3 Man Utd, 3-2 Newcastle & Forest amongst others?

Give me those games against some of the dross served up in recent weeks.

Like I said there were some outliers but not many.

I didn't find that United game entertaining in the slightest apart from the last minute, we conspired to turn what should have been the easiest win of the season into a fight for our lives (and let's be honest we were tamely accepting our fate after going behind until Ten Hag thought it was a clever idea to put wind in the players and fans sails by bringing Mount on, it was Xhaka winding up the Anfield crowd levels of stupidity).

Edited February 3, 20251 yr by Argo

1 hour ago, Nibs said:

You have to be kidding? You didn't enjoy the 4-4 Man City, 4-3 Man Utd, 3-2 Newcastle & Forest amongst others?

Give me those games against some of the dross served up in recent weeks.

Those games literally meant nothing given we either dropped points or lost the very next week which became a reoccurring theme that season after a "good" performance against a big club. 

For someone who has achieved pretty much f**k all, he is incredibly stubborn. 

Gradually turning into one my most disliked managers. I hate the tactics he uses. 

Over complicates everything, which is even harder with such a young and inexperienced squad, some of which have barely left youth football. 

The structure of the team looked much better in the last 30 minutes. 

Really don't like the inverted full backs.

Nkunku inside right with Cucurella providing width down one side, then Neto staying wide, but with Gusto in support down the right. 

We will see how Brighton goes...

Luck was on his side but good game management to recognize Cucurella + Enzo in those channels offered next to nothing. Guiu, Nkunku, Palmer, Neto, and Enzo offered too much overload & positional play for West Ham to contend with. Hopefully we see this "Plan B" more often. 

Also, changes in the 50th minute? Were we dreaming?

4 minutes ago, big blue said:

The structure of the team looked much better in the last 30 minutes. 

Really don't like the inverted full backs.

Nkunku inside right with Cucurella providing width down one side, then Neto staying wide, but with Gusto in support down the right. 

We will see how Brighton goes...

I don't think we need to read too deeply into it, we were just desperately chasing the game. There were still moments where West Ham could have caught us out. Maresca's tactics were thrown out of the window and we just went for it. We won the game through 10 minutes of throwing everything at West Ham.

4 minutes ago, big blue said:

The structure of the team looked much better in the last 30 minutes. 

Really don't like the inverted full backs.

Nkunku inside right with Cucurella providing width down one side, then Neto staying wide, but with Gusto in support down the right. 

We will see how Brighton goes...

The fixtures until Arsenal offer a chance to wrestle momentum back.

For whatever reason Brighton and Villa have been good stylistic matches for us last couple of seasons and if we don't get 6/6 at home vs Leicester and Saints we don't deserve top 4.

Can’t believe I compared him to Poch. 

12 minutes ago, big blue said:

The structure of the team looked much better in the last 30 minutes. 

Really don't like the inverted full backs.

Nkunku inside right with Cucurella providing width down one side, then Neto staying wide, but with Gusto in support down the right. 

We will see how Brighton goes...

Came here to say basically this, as soon as Maresca changed his entire game plan and made the subs we looked so much better. We looked so robotic for the first hour of that game it was a really painful watch.

Yeah worrying had Jackson never been injured would he have even made the changes? The subs, tactical tweak and overloads is what won us the game. 

9 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

I don't think we need to read too deeply into it, we were just desperately chasing the game. There were still moments where West Ham could have caught us out. Maresca's tactics were thrown out of the window and we just went for it. We won the game through 10 minutes of throwing everything at West Ham.

That's my worry too mate unfortunately.

Maresca absolutely needed that win this evening. Big double fist pump from him at the final whistle.

Hopefully he'll realise why it happened and not revert to type.

Both Jackson + Guiu are fine according to Maresca. 

36 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Yeah worrying had Jackson never been injured would he have even made the changes? The subs, tactical tweak and overloads is what won us the game. 

My concern as well is will Maresca learn to adapt his system? Because that first hour compared to the last half hour was night and day. Is it a good thing that Maresca's entire system was thrown out of the window and we looked much better? I dunno how that bodes for the future given how stubborn he is.

Just now, timetowaste said:

My concern as well is will Maresca learn to adapt his system? Because that first hour compared to the last half hour was night and day. Is it a good thing that Maresca's entire system was thrown out of the window and we looked much better? I dunno how that bodes for the future given how stubborn he is.

Isn't that a good thing if this isn't a one off? (When his initial tactics aren't working).

They'll also be times he coaches a comfortable win (like he did vs Bournemouth and the players let him down).

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Isn't that a good thing if this isn't a one off? (When his initial tactics aren't working).

They'll also be times he coaches a comfortable win (like he did vs Bournemouth and the players let him down).

Its a good thing if he learns from it but we've seen so many times this season how stubborn he can be. 

49 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

Its a good thing if he learns from it but we've seen so many times this season how stubborn he can be. 

Indeed. 

You have to have more than one game plan to be a top manager, he needs to have, and be ready to use, a plan B, C and D. 

Too often he has stuck with plan A and only done something in the last 10 minutes, being a Felix or Nkunku sub.

1 hour ago, timetowaste said:

Its a good thing if he learns from it but we've seen so many times this season how stubborn he can be. 

I hope Colwill doesn't really think all his mistakes were someone else's fault. He could have cost us three goals today instead of only one.. It's a good thing if he learns from it as well

13 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Those games literally meant nothing given we either dropped points or lost the very next week which became a reoccurring theme that season after a "good" performance against a big club. 

I'm not talking about what the games mean - I'm talking about shear excitement and entertainment. And no-one can argue that those games were not entertaining and gave you a buzz. Especially when you compare to how we played for much of last night and against Man City. Chalk and cheese.

7 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I don't think we need to read too deeply into it, we were just desperately chasing the game. There were still moments where West Ham could have caught us out. Maresca's tactics were thrown out of the window and we just went for it. We won the game through 10 minutes of throwing everything at West Ham.

Exactly.  We went into Standby mode throughout injury time, including a kamikaze 30 yard pass back from almost the half way line, to a marked Jorgensen.  How we didn't get caught with a sucker punch I'll never know.

2 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Exactly.  We went into Standby mode throughout injury time, including a kamikaze 30 yard pass back from almost the half way line, to a marked Jorgensen.  How we didn't get caught with a sucker punch I'll never know.

Who did play that pass - couldn't quite believe it at the time and didn't see who made the pass as I was in shock at how bad it was?!!

8 minutes ago, Nibs said:

Who did play that pass - couldn't quite believe it at the time and didn't see who made the pass as I was in shock at how bad it was?!!

Fernandez. It was also Enzo right at the end when we almost imploded but got the ball out wide that was sleepwalking over to it and then realised that it wasn't going out and just got there ahead of the WHU player to push it down the line.