West Ham (a) - Player ratings

[Lenny]

Given 5

Edgar 4

Taylor 5

Colo 6

N'zogbia 6

Geremi 5

Butt 4

Cacapa 5

Duff 5

Xisco 5

Owen 6

 

I wouldnt say anyone particularly had a nightmare performance; we were just collectively shit and had no confidence.

[Guest bluegeordie]

Given 6 

(No chance with the 1st and 3rd goals, and deserved more protection for the 2nd, after a smart initial save; looked more comfortable in possession than most of our outfield players, and iirc distributed the ball quite well)

 

Edgar 3

(Appears to be well below EPL standard, and should be 3rd choice at best. That missed header in the 2nd half suggests that he might benefit from reading "The Idiot's Guide to Physics". An obvious crime and mystery that he was selected in preference to Bassong, which would also have allowed Zoggy to be played in the wide midfield role to which he's suited, with Geremi slotting in at right back)

 

Taylor 4

(I neither hate nor love the guy, but this was one of his shakier performances; made an absolute mess of their 2nd (and quite possibly decisive) goal, and will presumably be receiving a "thank you" card in the mail from Di Michele and Zola)

 

Colo 6

(Imo he did more positive stuff in the match than will be apparent from the lowlight reel, with some important interventions in the 2nd half; virtually impossible to look world class with what was around and in front of him)

 

N'Zogbia 6

(As usual rather clueless defensively - his positioning for the third goal, aaarrrggghhh - but at least he tried to stay involved in the game, and he looked ok going forwards. Btw I think there's some promise in his combination with Bassong when the latter is played at LB) 

 

Geremi 6

(Much maligned, and in no danger of breaking any land speed records, but holds possession better than most, and provides better delivery into the box than the majority of our lot ... which perhaps says more about them than him)

 

Butt 3

(Imo the usual (especially away) performance from him - that is, painfully slow, shockingly wasteful, with zero creativity ... not to mention incredibly irritating in the way that he jogs around during breaks in play trying to look like the archetypal strong and composed professional. As long as he is first choice in our midfield we will struggle) 

 

Cacapa 5

(Looked a fish out of water in the first half, but seemed to grow into his midfield role as the game progressed; a neat pass to Owen for the goal, and some pretty decent spreading of play in the 2nd half) 

 

Duff 5 

(Huffed and puffed, and managed to look vaguely dangerous, but as usual in a black and white shirt he provided very little end product)

 

Xisco 5

(Some ok hold-up play and lay-off work, and managed to get into some useful positions, but he needs to adjust to the pace of the EPL. At this very early stage my jury is obviously still out on whether he can manage that, but on the evidence thus far he certainly doesn't appear to be Flash Gordon where foot speed or decision making is concerned - shoot ffs!)

 

Owen 6

(A quality goal out of very little, decent overall movement, and with the exception of his tame header on goal he did as much as could be expected with the generally poor service that he received. I'm confident that if we provide him with decent service, he can do the business for us. To state the obvious, we need to get him to re-sign asap ... although he'd be stark raving mad to even contemplate doing so at the moment)     

 

 

Bassong 6

(Seems competent, strong, and quite positive in his play; surely a much, much better option than Edgar)

 

Gonzalez 4

(Not much time in which to make an impression, and it's clearly too early to tell how he'll pan out for us, but from his outings thus far I have similar reservations to those I have about Xisco re his capacity to adjust to the tempo of the EPL)       

 

 

Hughton 3

(For my money, he got the formation seriously wrong for the first hour ... but at least he wasn't dressed quite as ridiculously as he was for the Hull game) 

 

 

OVERALL 4

I was disappointed, but in truth not much more than I expected to be leading into the game, given the overall crisis we find ourselves in right now, the dreadful injury situation that we're facing, and the Zola factor at West Ham. On the bright-ish side, at least the scoreline didn't blowout in the way that it threatened to, and there were periods in the second half of both halves where we looked better than useless, without ever threatening to look like Arsenal in their response to going behind to Bolton in the late game (now that really was "the beautiful game", and they had more off-the-ball movement in that 15 minute-spell than we had for the full 90).

 

Looking forawrds, and borrowing terminology from another thread, the key question is "will Spurs be worser than us in mid-week?".     

[Colocho]

Given 5

Edgar 2

Taylor 4

Coloccini 3

N'Zogbia 6

Geremi 6

Cacapa 4

Duff 4

Butt 4

Owen 6

Xisco 5