*** 'ammers v city official matchday thread***

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Obviously a good win and a vital one. WHU decided to play their defensive game and maybe it helped us because our key 3 creative players all had very good games,Silva,Yaya and Sergio. We dominated most of the game and although we might think we need to finish chances better it was great to control the game as we did and create as much as we did.

The only concern is that a weak WHU side caused us problems and a little panic.It would not be right to say it was because we were weak at center back because I think both Javi and Nasti had very decent games.I am not even sure it was because the full backs were poor ( although I do think Gael was very iffy) Add to that Fernandinho having a great game and it's puzzling that we were not rock solid but we were a bit rocky at times.

It's all about the team defending and with 4 clearly attacking players plus Yaya it obvious that we will give space and therefore opportunities at times which means we will look a bit more open than we would like but I think we will have to get used to it.

I wouldn't worry too much mate. we got a good result away against the type of team that causes us problems. we can't win 3 or 4 nil every game.

Not really a worry as I think that's just the way it is.We are great to watch and should always score goals but with that we will always be a little open unless our defenders become more dominant individually.We simply have to score goals and finish games off.It's going to be a great season.

[Goaters 103]

A game we had to win.

Glad West Ham had no striker though. Aguero excellent, Silva incisive, Fernandinho busy. Thought Ya Ya off colour & Clichy tosh, but Garcia did ok despite my fears.

Also a nod to Pellegrini today recognising the threat was coming from Jarvis & Downing crosses from wide, so putting on Kolarov and Milner to help neutralise it.

On to Moscow though and more of the same please.

[Spurge]

Well deserved three points tonight with Fernandinho Nastasic and Sergio simply outstanding! CTWD!

Nastasic made a fantastic clearance in the first half but I don't know if he had a great game. I think the defense, as always when Garcia and Nastasic make up the centre of it, lacked structure and solidity. West Ham's goal summed it all up IMO.

Great game though. Sergio for the win!

I thought we defended well - with structure and solidity. West Ham's goal was pretty much their only shot on target. Some of the defending had a little bit of desperation about it in the last 15 mins but the game was stretched by then as you'd expect as they were pushing at this point, but for large parts I thought we had the structure and solidity that you didn't.

Credit to Pellers started offensively and when needed went for plan B, tightened up where he needed to be and countered well scoring a third to finish them off. We could easily have had 5 tonight.

[Risby]

I think we looked out numbered down the flanks and that was due to the number of players they threw in to midfield. That was their biggest threat. Through the middle we were alright.
When we controlled the ball, we looked comfortable.

[Peter Doherty (AGAIG)]

Today we tell the rest of the league we mean business and take 3 pts from the Ammers

Good shout!

[Peter Doherty (AGAIG)]

Kolarov for Negredo was genius by the Engineer. Well impressive tatics tonight apart from Garcia in defence 9/10

Garcia was excellent.

[zuricity]

I think we looked out numbered down the flanks and that was due to the number of players they threw in to midfield. That was their biggest threat. Through the middle we were alright.
When we controlled the ball, we looked comfortable.

For about 5 mins !

[aaron bond]

Nastasic made a fantastic clearance in the first half but I don't know if he had a great game. I think the defense, as always when Garcia and Nastasic make up the centre of it, lacked structure and solidity. West Ham's goal summed it all up IMO.

Great game though. Sergio for the win!

Oh he did !

Here's the thing ( tag it btw , some great interviews by Alex Baldwin).

A couple on here have tried to piss on Nastis chips.

Hey,we are without our centre back pairings and inspite of others worrying about Garcia. Or Lescott missing, Nasti just rises above it. He made one unnecessary bad pass in the second half, otherwise he had an excellent game.

Watch the goal West Ham scored - he's just ball watching and is completely unaware of the West Ham players around him. Vaz Te is next to him and then just wanders past him to go behind Garcia and collect the ball.

You can't do something like that and still have an excellent game if you're a defender.

These defence frailties in his game have always been there but they've become more noticeable this season as the defence has been more exposed and he has to do more front line defending.

[walmai]

Obviously a good win and a vital one. WHU decided to play their defensive game and maybe it helped us because our key 3 creative players all had very good games,Silva,Yaya and Sergio. We dominated most of the game and although we might think we need to finish chances better it was great to control the game as we did and create as much as we did.

The only concern is that a weak WHU side caused us problems and a little panic.

We were weakened in that we had a central defensive partnership that is still feeling for its best form. Collins normally plays alongside one of the younger two, although I am not so sure that his presence would have made much difference for any of the goals. Two were sublime quality (Aguero's finish for the first was sweet) and it was a mess up between Vaz Te and Nolan for the second.

Our obvious other weakness is a lack of a fit and Prem-quality centre forward, necessitating the formation played yesterday. It was always more likely to work at WHL, because their team is weaker than yours in most departments and it contained an element of surprise.

In an ideal world, we would have worked your weakened defence, but it was always going to be a big ask to compete toe to toe with your team. You actually appear to have improved still further by obtaining Negredo and Fernandinho and I would expect you to compete all season for the title.

Can I ask you lot a question that is causing a bit of a controversy at our end? Did you send back some of your allocation late in the day last week? Any answers to that most welcome.

Enjoy Moscow!!

[zuricity]

Nastasic made a fantastic clearance in the first half but I don't know if he had a great game. I think the defense, as always when Garcia and Nastasic make up the centre of it, lacked structure and solidity. West Ham's goal summed it all up IMO.

Great game though. Sergio for the win!

Oh he did !

Here's the thing ( tag it btw , some great interviews by Alex Baldwin).

A couple on here have tried to piss on Nastis chips.

Hey,we are without our centre back pairings and inspite of others worrying about Garcia. Or Lescott missing, Nasti just rises above it. He made one unnecessary bad pass in the second half, otherwise he had an excellent game.

Watch the goal West Ham scored - he's just ball watching and is completely unaware of the West Ham players around him. Vaz Te is next to him and then just wanders past him to go behind Garcia and collect the ball.

You can't do something like that and still have an excellent game if you're a defender.

These defence frailties in his game have always been there but they've become more noticeable this season as the defence has been more exposed and he has to do more front line defending.

I think all the defenders seemed to be ball watching for their goal. It was a ping - pong play with the ball moving about quite a lot.

[mcfc1632]

Obviously a good win and a vital one. WHU decided to play their defensive game and maybe it helped us because our key 3 creative players all had very good games,Silva,Yaya and Sergio. We dominated most of the game and although we might think we need to finish chances better it was great to control the game as we did and create as much as we did.

The only concern is that a weak WHU side caused us problems and a little panic.

We were weakened in that we had a central defensive partnership that is still feeling for its best form. Collins normally plays alongside one of the younger two, although I am not so sure that his presence would have made much difference for any of the goals. Two were sublime quality (Aguero's finish for the first was sweet) and it was a mess up between Vaz Te and Nolan for the second.

Our obvious other weakness is a lack of a fit and Prem-quality centre forward, necessitating the formation played yesterday. It was always more likely to work at WHL, because their team is weaker than yours in most departments and it contained an element of surprise.

In an ideal world, we would have worked your weakened defence, but it was always going to be a big ask to compete toe to toe with your team. You actually appear to have improved still further by obtaining Negredo and Fernandinho and I would expect you to compete all season for the title.

Can I ask you lot a question that is causing a bit of a controversy at our end? Did you send back some of your allocation late in the day last week? Any answers to that most welcome.

Enjoy Moscow!!

Walmai - I do not know an official answer - I am sure someone must - but as someone that went I would comment:

- They were still on sale last week - very unusual but that will be down to it being £52 and in London in the evening whilst on TV - if we (or any team from the north) was not to sell out then those are the conditions that could make that happen

- One of the guys that I was drinking with before the game had to met up with a CITY fan in pub to get a ticket because he could not get one on Wednesday from CITY (but of course some may have been sent back) - paid over £100 which made me disappointed in the blue that sold it.

- There did not seem to be many spare seats in the away end - it looked pretty full - so............

Why is it a controversial point for 'ammers fans?

[Cocacolajojo1]

Well deserved three points tonight with Fernandinho Nastasic and Sergio simply outstanding! CTWD!

Nastasic made a fantastic clearance in the first half but I don't know if he had a great game. I think the defense, as always when Garcia and Nastasic make up the centre of it, lacked structure and solidity. West Ham's goal summed it all up IMO.

Great game though. Sergio for the win!

I thought we defended well - with structure and solidity. West Ham's goal was pretty much their only shot on target. Some of the defending had a little bit of desperation about it in the last 15 mins but the game was stretched by then as you'd expect as they were pushing at this point, but for large parts I thought we had the structure and solidity that you didn't.

Credit to Pellers started offensively and when needed went for plan B, tightened up where he needed to be and countered well scoring a third to finish them off. We could easily have had 5 tonight.

I'll tell you what though, the midfield provided more cover today than we've seen the entire season. And then to top it all off, Pellers switches to a five man midfield which we've been screaming for at times. I'd say that I'm happy about this game in that respect, Pellers showed that he's not to stubborn about his philosophy. A bit comical though with both Clichy and Kolarov on the left flank and both wanting to take the same space on the left of West Ham's penalty box. Kolarov looked a bit lost at times :).

As for the defending, well... I was responding to a post that claimed that Nastasic was "outstanding". None of the central defenders were outstanding today. And at times they were shaky, seemed to be lacking a clear idea about how do divide the work and on several occassions, especially in the first half when poor finishing from West Ham was the only factor that hindered them from having two or three proper chances on goal, they went ball watching. I don't agree with you on the back four but I'm with you that we had a more general stability in our defense but that was because of our midfield. And particularly Ferna. Switching into gear slowly but surely now isn't he? Nasri, as always nowadays, also pulled a big shift on whichever side he ended up on when in defense.

Oh he did !

Here's the thing ( tag it btw , some great interviews by Alex Baldwin).

A couple on here have tried to piss on Nastis chips.

Hey,we are without our centre back pairings and inspite of others worrying about Garcia. Or Lescott missing, Nasti just rises above it. He made one unnecessary bad pass in the second half, otherwise he had an excellent game.

Well if that was the only fault you noticed from nasty that's your choice. Thing is, I say that that the central defense was having a shaky day as a contrast to someone claiming that Nastasic had an excellent game. I.E. I was saying NEITHER Garcia and Nastasic had a great game defensively. And you only focus on Nastasic...

And I didn't say that he had a bad game either so his chips are still dry!

[mcfc1632]

Things sometimes look different from the stands but I thought we played very well and that the effort / work rate was impressive - there feels to be a real team spirit amongst the lads. Also I get a lot of confidence that there is some good work on the training field. I know that you would expect this - but it is not always so evident. Not just set pieces either I like the way I saw Clichy on the right when we needed cover there - tracking back to the left as Micah returned.

Good news is that Sergio had a great game - beyond the goals - Silva looked like he is becoming really central and back to his best - and I thought that Nasti and Garcia looked really effective - often covering well for the FBs. I really think that Negredo is going to become an absolute legend for us - what an astute signing.

Glichy was not very effective and Nasri was not as good as recent games but - they were not 'bad'. I thought that it was the best that I have seen Ya Ya and Ferd play together - and most importantly we looked like a real team - I liked the substitutions as well - seemed like the players really knew what Pellers wanted from them and gives me increasing confidence that he is tactically very good

[walmai]

Can I ask you lot a question that is causing a bit of a controversy at our end? Did you send back some of your allocation late in the day last week? Any answers to that most welcome.

Enjoy Moscow!!

Walmai - I do not know an official answer - I am sure someone must - but as someone that went I would comment:

- They were still on sale last week - very unusual but that will be down to it being £52 and in London in the evening whilst on TV - if we (or any team from the north) was not to sell out then those are the conditions that could make that happen

- One of the guys that I was drinking with before the game had to met up with a CITY fan in pub to get a ticket because he could not get one on Wednesday from CITY (but of course some may have been sent back) - paid over £100 which made me disappointed in the blue that sold it.

- There did not seem to be many spare seats in the away end - it looked pretty full - so............

Why is it a controversial point for 'ammers fans?

Something happened that has been 'explained' by a late return of a large part of your allocation. Since posting my first question, though, that explanation has already been shot down.

What arose was that up to 2000 tickets were sold to the local council at a ridiculously reduced rate (a fiver (!) for a ticket previously available at the not so affordable £52 you mention).

This led to a certain number of 'home fans' turning up and cheering your goals! And more than a few less than happy faces amongst the die-hards who, whichever way you look at it, pay more per game into the club.

Another wedge being driven between the board and the fans, not all of whom are at all enthused about our forthcoming move.

Whilst you're on, though, why is Ravel a 'shit Carlos Tevez'?

I make him better than that already! ;)

[mcfc1632]

Walmai - think that you have got the wrong end of the stick with that chant (or perhaps I have) - it was your fans singing when Aguerro had the ball (because he is short and Argentine?) - unless a) I have a real hearing problem (Cider induced if so) or b) we snuck a load of fans into the Alpari stand - which is where I though the chant was coming from

[walmai]

Walmai - think that you have got the wrong end of the stick with that chant (or perhaps I have) - it was your fans singing when Aguerro had the ball (because he is short and Argentine?) - unless a) I have a real hearing problem (Cider induced if so) or b) we snuck a load of fans into the Alpari stand - which is where I though the chant was coming from

Haha!!

Mos' def the wrong end of the stick...my apologies.

[zabbadabbado]

I thought we played really well yesterday against a decent West Ham side.

There were times some off our football was just jaw dropping sublime.

We are now becoming noticeably faster moving the ball about,we are breaking out at speed and our passing is becoming more accurate.

I also think this partnership between Aguero and Negredo is going to bag us a lot of goals.they compliment each others style so well, Negredo has vision and looks for killers passes as well as goals.

All Manuel needs to do now is try and get us playing well consistently and we will be either there,or there about come what May

[nottsblue]

There is only one aspect of the game that ultimately matters.

3 points

We played well v Villa & got dicked. We were in control v Cardiff & got diddly squat. The rags for years & dippers before them mastered the art of getting 3 points when playing poorly. I would rather have this attribute than playing well but getting nothing.

However its always pleasing to win when playing well so well done to all concerned for the result AND performance. After all winning is a habit.

[aaron bond]

Nastasic made a fantastic clearance in the first half but I don't know if he had a great game. I think the defense, as always when Garcia and Nastasic make up the centre of it, lacked structure and solidity. West Ham's goal summed it all up IMO.

Great game though. Sergio for the win!

Oh he did !

Here's the thing ( tag it btw , some great interviews by Alex Baldwin).

A couple on here have tried to piss on Nastis chips.

Hey,we are without our centre back pairings and inspite of others worrying about Garcia. Or Lescott missing, Nasti just rises above it. He made one unnecessary bad pass in the second half, otherwise he had an excellent game.

Watch the goal West Ham scored - he's just ball watching and is completely unaware of the West Ham players around him. Vaz Te is next to him and then just wanders past him to go behind Garcia and collect the ball.

You can't do something like that and still have an excellent game if you're a defender.

These defence frailties in his game have always been there but they've become more noticeable this season as the defence has been more exposed and he has to do more front line defending.

I think all the defenders seemed to be ball watching for their goal. It was a ping - pong play with the ball moving about quite a lot.

But you said Nastasic had an excellent game. His job as a defender is to stop them scoring goals, but if he fell asleep at a key point today and was ball watching then he didn't do his job as West Ham scored then.

Garcia was just as guilty but we already know he struggles playing as a centre back. Nastasic, in my opinion, is as poor defensively as Garcia yet I have no idea why so many people are overlooking his flaws.

We paid £12m plus Savic for him, who we'd paid £7m for. So Nastasic effectively cost £19m! For that money we should be expecting someone outstanding.

Instead, we have a defender who can't tackle, is hopeless in one on one situations, and is poor in the air. His flaws were obvious all last season but he got away with it as he was surrounded by other good defenders in a well organised system. This season, our defence is a mess and he is costing us goals on a regular basis.

I've always refrained from saying that I think he's completely shite as I obviously want him to succeed, and I only want the best for our club. I genuinely hoped he could become a top player, but the reality is he just isn't good enough for a team of our quality. The sooner we can get rid of him and look elsewhere the more likely we can develop into a sound defensive unit once again.

[Sideshow Bob]

Nastasic made a fantastic clearance in the first half but I don't know if he had a great game. I think the defense, as always when Garcia and Nastasic make up the centre of it, lacked structure and solidity. West Ham's goal summed it all up IMO.

Great game though. Sergio for the win!

Oh he did !

Here's the thing ( tag it btw , some great interviews by Alex Baldwin).

A couple on here have tried to piss on Nastis chips.

Hey,we are without our centre back pairings and inspite of others worrying about Garcia. Or Lescott missing, Nasti just rises above it. He made one unnecessary bad pass in the second half, otherwise he had an excellent game.

Watch the goal West Ham scored - he's just ball watching and is completely unaware of the West Ham players around him. Vaz Te is next to him and then just wanders past him to go behind Garcia and collect the ball.

You can't do something like that and still have an excellent game if you're a defender.

These defence frailties in his game have always been there but they've become more noticeable this season as the defence has been more exposed and he has to do more front line defending.

I think all the defenders seemed to be ball watching for their goal. It was a ping - pong play with the ball moving about quite a lot.

But you said Nastasic had an excellent game. His job as a defender is to stop them scoring goals, but if he fell asleep at a key point today and was ball watching then he didn't do his job as West Ham scored then.

Garcia was just as guilty but we already know he struggles playing as a centre back. Nastasic, in my opinion, is as poor defensively as Garcia yet I have no idea why so many people are overlooking his flaws.

We paid £12m plus Savic for him, who we'd paid £7m for. So Nastasic effectively cost £19m! For that money we should be expecting someone outstanding.

Instead, we have a defender who can't tackle, is hopeless in one on one situations, and is poor in the air. His flaws were obvious all last season but he got away with it as he was surrounded by other good defenders in a well organised system. This season, our defence is a mess and he is costing us goals on a regular basis.

I've always refrained from saying that I think he's completely shite as I obviously want him to succeed, and I only want the best for our club. I genuinely hoped he could become a top player, but the reality is he just isn't good enough for a team of our quality. The sooner we can get rid of him and look elsewhere the more likely we can develop into a sound defensive unit once again.

Meh