tajjuk

Ah yes but I presume you did't change your mind half way through and decide that actually rather than a BBQ you wanted a Pizza oven (and yes people have outdoor pizza ovens) Nicola Cortese strikes me as a man who might change his mind and want a pizza oven. They are properly hagglling over the positioning of the new 30ft high statue of himself that Nicola wants on the roof.

LOL, might as well get all the doom and gloom out in one go, so as I understand it:- - We have a loan that we know no details about but clearly we have no money, have mortgaged our future and will go the way of portsmouth. - The training ground development has stopped, this therefore conclusively proves we have no money. - Cortese is meddling in team affairs and dictating what players have to play, is apparently lying to us at every turn and is the love child of hitler and satan. - Adkins is tactically inept mainly it seems because we lost away to Everton. - We are going to get relegated because we have lost 5 out of the first 6. - We didn't buy enough players in the summer. - We spent too much in the summer. - We bought the wrong players in the summer. - NA will be sacked and Harry Redknapp will replace him. Doomed I tell you, we are all doomed! Have I missed anything?

It's amazing that such lazy journalism is allowed to compare West Ham with Barcelona and make assumptions just because they play a similar number of long balls. West Ham play on average per game:- 65 long balls, 320 short passes, 1 through ball and 28 crosses. Therefore they average 414 'passes' per game. Long balls account for 15.7% of their game. Barcelona play on average per game:- 59 long balls, 646 short passes, 7 through balls and 19 crosses. Therefore they average 731 'passes' per game. Long ball accounts for 8% of their game. West Ham are twice as likely to play a long ball than Barcelona I'm sure they would love Allardyce at the Camp Nou

Like the one the Skates wanted build? http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/portsmouthstadium/ http://www.dezeen.com/2008/06/23/portsmouth-fc-stadium-by-herzog-de-meuron/ A snip at £600 million

Seems a sensible and reasonable explanation. Probably why it has been overlooked, why spoil a good bout hysteria posting? Also no one pays for construction projects up front, it's all in stages, builders need working capital for materials, sometimes they get credit accounts, there are sub contractors to pay, unseen expenses, insurance, security etc etc. It's all very complicated.

Yep this, lots of people adding 2 + 2 and making 5 million! Where has this 'massive spending on wages' come from? Ramirez is reported to be our highest earner on around £35k a week, that's not huge compared to Premier League standards at all, the likes of Rooney are on £150k a week, Pompey in 2008 were paying players like Glen Johnson £60k a week and several of them were on this amount. I doubt Adam Johnson took a huge pay cut going to Sunderland which puts him on around £100k a week.

Whilst this is a bit worrying, we don't know enough so everyone is just wildly speculating about things. Also the title of this thread is completely wrong, we haven't borrowed against future season ticket sales, just one years parachute payment or TV money. One final thing I might add (wildly speculating here) is that maybe we are just borrowing to improve our credit rating for the future? If the club was debt free, and has been debt free we have had no lines of credit, thus in the eyes of banks (particularly under the spotlight UK banks) our credit rating would be poor (+ football club + previously in admin football club) so to enable us to get a big loan in the future future investments (i.e new stadium mortgage etc.) we will need good credit to get it. Just a thought.

Would have been better surrounding facilities if we had been at Stoheham, however the ground itself is good and the immediate area around the ground is fine. I'm sure if we one day become a champions league regulars like say a Chelsea the club will look into upgrading the surrounding area, can't imagine the land is that expensive and I imagine the council will welcome any investment in that area of the city. At the moment we have no need for bars and hotels etc when we don't fill our corporate boxes.

1. 1-0 or 6-0 you still loose the cup, it was an irrelevant statement, cup finals are nothing like away league games. 2. Because he's crap, we would have offered less going forward and wouldn't have done any better defensively because he's an ATTACKING PLAYER. 3. Some have proven good enough at this level in the first few games, Puncheon was playing Premiership football last year, Lallana, Morgan had championship experience. Some like KD have proven they aren't good enough. Key point - "They played for us in League 1 and rose to the Premier League", Dickson played 23 games in league one and then hasn't played for us since. So don't go comparing him to our first team players, it was a plainly silly suggestion to drop our Captain in favour of a guy that couldn't nail down a first team place in League 1 and has only played 5 games at Championship level in his entire career. Like I'm the one talking nonsense

Well trying to play for a draw in cup final is a bit of stupid idea in the first place seeing as you don't get any points:rolleyes: As I said chaplow isn't a defensive midfielder, nor is he good enough for the Prem. The result would have been worse. And I see your ridiculous Dickson suggestion has been completely forgotten from your subsequent posts. Yeh Lallana needs to adapt as does the whole team, not really a ground breaking statement there. I still see nothing in what you have said that gives credence to playing league 1 level players in the premiership aside from it gives the impression that we are more defensive.

whoscored.com is saying 22 Against Newcastle they had 18, Swansea they had 31, 13 against West Brom (which they lost) 18 against Man Utd, 22 against Villa.

Thought I would highlight a few key stats opta stats which I think shows we aren't as bad (particularly defensively) as people think. - We are joint with Sunderland on shots conceded per game (at 19) which is the worst in the league, however we are 3rd (22.8 ) in tackles per game and 3rd (19.2) in interceptions per game (only slightly behind Fulham and Arsenal). We also concede the least fouls. - In shots per game, we have played Everton (1st), Man City (joint 2nd), Arsenal (5th) Man Utd (6th), obviously we have contributed to boosting those numbers but it shows we have played very attacking teams. - With regards to shots against us most come from the middle (63%) with a slight bias to the left (21%) as opposed to the right (16%). We also have the highest amount of shots against us in the 18 yard box (58%) however we are only 10th with 6% of of shots against us coming in the 6 yard box. 36% of shots against us come form outside the box so it's clear we need to protect the 18yd box better and push that number up (we are 17th, Liverpool top with 54% of shots against them outside the box). - We might want to think about more crossed into the box, we are 17th in the crosses per game table, which is odd considering we have Lambert. We are joint top on through balls per game (5), 19th on long balls per game, and 7th on Short passes per game so we are sticking to our philosophy well, although our pass completion rate at 81.9% is a bit low (11th) as is our average amount of possession at 48%, however ALL the teams we have played have a higher possession than us (Man Utd 1st @ 59.7%, Man City 2nd @ 59%, Arsenal 4th @ 57.4%, Wigan 6th @ 55.5%, Everton 8th, Villa 12th). - Finally our shots per game is pretty low at 13 shots per game, however it is higher than the average conceded by Man City, Arsenal and Everton and about the same as Man Utd and Wigan. In summary we have played some very good team and still only have two very bad stats, shots conceded per game and the goals we have conceded, however if you click on pretty much any other stat (where being high up is positive) you will see Man Utd, Arsenal, Man City and Everton. We have done better against those teams than teams have done averagely in the 5 other games against them. (if that makes sense) http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3389/Stages/6531/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2012-2013

BTW thought I'd add after looking on whoscored.com, Everton have the highest shots on goal per game at 20.7 of all premier league teams, and we conceded exactly 20 shots to them.

For starters Chaplow is not a defensive midfielder, he's played right wing for us or as an attacking midfielder, he's an attack minded player yet people here seem to think he's the white claude makele. He's also considerably worse full stop, I also think that Rodriguez has done pretty well defensively when he played wide left. Your not asking them to do something that is "alien" to them, you are asking them to track runners. Lallana has been playing left wing for us in a 4-4-2 all last year he should know that he has defensive duties, same thing was obviously drilled into Ramirez at Bologna, every modern day midfielder knows he has defensive duties, even Lambert has defensive duties. Also that cup final worked out really well for us didn't it?

To start in the article it says this "After watching West Ham's impressive and stylish victory over QPR at Loftus Road". Stylish? not sure which game he was watching. Also opta just states a 'long ball' as a pass over 25m, a through ball from the centre circle to the edge of the box would be that distance. If it was aerial passes over say 50m (what I would call a 'long ball') then you might see different numbers. You also have to remember that better teams have far more possession so will play more passes generally. Look at the short passes per game standings:- Stoke have played a similar number of long balls per game (59) to say Man Utd (56) but Man Utd also play 521 short passes per game to Stokes 229. So Man Utd play a long on average 9% of the time. Stoke play a long ball on average 20% of the time. It's why that comparison to Real Madrid and Barcelona is stupid. Players like Xavi and Iniesta will complete 100 passes in a game, West Ham only complete an average of 320 passes as a whole.

I agree on the first point. I highlighted the fact against Arsenal that neither wide men were tracking their runners, particularly Puncheon and this led to goals. Happened in all the games so far. However I disagree the solution is to put in considerably worse players, Chaplow and particularly Dickson weren't considered good enough for the championship (and rightly so). I doubt when Cork is fit Chaplow will make the bench. I don't see the point in throwing on below par players in the hope they might 'do a job'. We had injuries, we don't have the big a squad (or at least that much quality in depth). Adkins put the best team out he could, and decided that based on the players we had the best way was to be positive. It almost worked, we were hardly thrashed, took the lead and could have been 2-0 up, from there who knows. I don't see as 'naive', I see that as a manager choosing a formation and tactics that suits the best players you have, for me that is always a better option than putting in lesser players to fit a formation or tactic, if we had some players who were close to the quality of Lallana and Ramirez in the squad that would do a better defensive job then yes, but not players who are well below them ability. NA just needs to get the wide men to do their defensive side of their jobs better, which I am sure he will be talking to them about. They watch the videos, they know hoe they conceded goals, I'm sure Lallana (especially as Captain) won;t sit there watching Everton's third and think that he's there as an attacker so what does it matter how he defends. Fact is modern wide players need to be able to track back and be better defensively as much as modern full backs have to be good going forward, I'm sure that Lallana will be working on it to get better. Just as I'm Ramirez is aware of it as well (I'm pretty sure before we bought him it was mentioned in reports that early on for bologna he didn't track back but it was something he had got better at).

Who exactly would you have played? I don't see the benefit of leaving your best players on the bench for no particular reason except we might look a little more defensive. We were without two of our better central midfielders, Puncheon was injured. Changes were enforced on NA and he had to re-shuffle the team the best he could. I'm pretty certain had either cork or morgan been fit they would have played in a midfield 3 and we might have lined up like we did at Man City and tied to hit Everton on the break. We didn't have the personnel for it so he tried something different and it almost worked, we were hardly thrashed, caught Everton by surprise and could have been 2-0 in the first half. Even going 1-0 up against teams in not as much form might have been enough to have gotten something out of the game, sadly Everton are playing so well and are full of confidence so responded, Everton say in 2011 might not have done. Every home team expects to win their home games, all the home fans expect to win and people expect the away team to come and defend (unless they are vastly better) sometimes it pays off to be a bit different and unexpected. Attacking and going 1-0 up away form home is a great way to unsettle the home team and put them under pressure.

Would take John Terry the central defender every day of the week, pretty sure he would take a bullet if it helped prevent a goal. John Terry the man however........................

Haven't read the whole thread, however few points:- - We were always going to loose away at Man City, Arsenal and Everton. - 4-4-2 is football relic, no team that plays "possession football" plays it. Most teams in the league will have 3 players in centre midfield and will tear you apart if you only play 2. - Shorty and Skinny Richard Chaplow will not add 'bite' to our midfield. He will add fouls. He has also hardly played in CM for us the entire time we have had him, he's not defensive midfielder and he is also not good enough. - Morgan was a big miss and is pretty much key to our formation by protecting the back four, the only viable replacement is Cork who is also injured. These things happen. - We are not good enough to 'shut up shop' away from home. It's a pointless exercise we will lose and just look more dismal doing it. Our strength is in attack, we should play to that strength. It doesn't mean going 'gung ho' but it means that we have to be more disciplined as a team but still be positive in our play. If we line up 10 men on the edge of the box we will still concede, if we play with a positive intent we catch some teams cold at home, however see above, against probably the best Everton team for 20 years whatever we did was going to be fruitless. - Both the Wigan and Everton games could have gone our way, against Wigan AL missed a hatfull and we had a great opportunity to go 2-0 against Everton. That's football. - Judge NA's tactics, our line ups, formation and the ability of our team after he have played more games than the 4 or so of the best 6 teams in this league. Oh and we aren't bottom, a lot of teams look a lot worse than us and have played a lot worst teams than us.

This really and we need our wide players to protect our full backs better, particularly Puncheon has been poor at this. Having watched some other defences I don' think our defenders are that bad, they need to cut down on the errors but I think the team needs to get better as defending as a whole.

Yaya Toure for me as well, the complete 'boss a game, can do everything, take the game by the scruff of the neck' midfielder. Like Gerrard was for Liverpool about 4/5 years ago.

We aren't going to get any away points playing like that. We don't have the team to 'shut up shop'. We have better attacking players than a lot of teams around us. We need to go and try to take advantage of the fact that home teams generally play more openly. It won't generally work but I reckon we will catch some teams cold to pick up some crucial away wins.

"we are a fantastic free flowing team that never go direct" "West Ham are long ball merchants"

I think Fulham are the kind of team that will suit us at home, they don't travel that well, they aren't great defensively and like us are far more suited to attacking/passing football. They also don't have any powerhouses bar Hangeland, especially in midfield. Not sure the answer to our lightweight midfield is Chaplow, what with him being 5 ft 9 in and skinny. He also didn't spend much time in central midfield even in the championship. IF he's going to play anywhere it's instead of Puncheon, he might not offer as much going forward but would be a lot more disciplined defensively, especially to help counter Riise going forward. Would like to see Boruc come in, think he's the best keeper we have and his experience and leadership will help the back four. Yoshida needs to keep playing CB, I think Fox will come in because he's the best we have for LB. Adkins just needs to give him strict instructions to defend more.

Sorry ours, I'm confident that we will get a similar if not more points form the same fixtures. Best case scenario from our opening 6 games would have been 6 pts, we have 3. West Ham won't get points at City, Everton or Arsenal or home to Man Utd. I doubt they will score against any of them either. I watched them against Norwich and they were nothing but average, they work hard, lump the ball about and rely on Set pieces. They defend better than we do but then their whole team is almost set up to defend. We are more likely to beat them away than at home I reckon, at St Mary's they will probably defend and catch us cold with a set piece, at home their fans will force them to play a bit more open and attacking and our superior attackers will exploit it. Just because they are 7th doesn't mean they are not going to be in a relegation battle, their team isn't bristling with quality, I would take 3 players from their team - Collins because he's a decent defender with premier league experience, Noble because he's the kind of tenacious midfield battler we don;t have (and still has decent technique) and Diame because again he's the kind of powerhouse midfielder that is useful to have. West Ham will probably stay up, just about though. They won't progress from there, in debt, old stadium, not much quality youth, overshadowed by bigger London clubs and an outdated style of football. Even if we get relegated I still think the longer term future of our club is why better than West Hams.