Ricardo's report v West Ham

[Jim Smith 2,319]

Howsons tracking was poor for both goals and as has been pointed out above the general positional sense of our defenders was awful, especially as we were two up. There is no way Moses should have been able to "get behind" our defence like that two yards inside our own half. Martin, Klose and Bassong all got drawn in to going for the same ball (as kept happening because they seemed to be trying to double up on Carroll who still won every flick on thus taking two of our defenders out of the game) and dragged out of position. Brady actually made a great recovery but even the. With four players back to their two we should be doing better. Bit of bad luck that it went straight to Payet but even so he should have been marked. We have not been able to mark properly all season - a really obvious deficiency in the coaching or the quality of our players (not sure which).

Martin gave his man too much space throughout and seems to naturally drift inside since his ill fated spell at centre back. He''s not good enough but then we know that. That said you have to question why, at two goals up, our defence were playing so high up the pitch. Tactically naive. The moment we went two up he should have made a change and we should have dropped deeper rather than allow the game to remain so stretched.

[Chip20 69]

[quote user="Jim Smith"]Howsons tracking was poor for both goals and as has been pointed out above the general positional sense of our defenders was awful, especially as we were two up. There is no way Moses should have been able to "get behind" our defence like that two yards inside our own half. Martin, Klose and Bassong all got drawn in to going for the same ball (as kept happening because they seemed to be trying to double up on Carroll who still won every flick on thus taking two of our defenders out of the game) and dragged out of position. Brady actually made a great recovery but even the. With four players back to their two we should be doing better. Bit of bad luck that it went straight to Payet but even so he should have been marked. We have not been able to mark properly all season - a really obvious deficiency in the coaching or the quality of our players (not sure which).

Martin gave his man too much space throughout and seems to naturally drift inside since his ill fated spell at centre back. He''s not good enough but then we know that. That said you have to question why, at two goals up, our defence were playing so high up the pitch. Tactically naive. The moment we went two up he should have made a change and we should have dropped deeper rather than allow the game to remain so stretched.[/quote]

It''s easy to say with hindsight that tactical changes should have been made. Hell, it''s even easy to call for it at the time when you don''t have to live with the consequences. Just playing Devil''s advocate here but I would contend that getting the decision right isn''t always as straightforward as we think. What if making the change has the opposite effect to the one intended? The manager is then castigated for changing the formula that had seen them go 2-0 up and thus losing the momentum. It''s easy to assume that switching to a more defensive strategy (with associated change in personnel) would have prevented the capitulation. Unfortunately we never get to go back and find out whether it would or it wouldn''t.

[Six Pack 93]

Not sure why people are blaming Howson ? new centre back Klose has the speed of a snail in 1st gear - after Brady made the last ditch tackle on Moses, they both ended up on the ground. Moses managed to get up and rob Klose of the ball. Signings like this guy & Pinto are killing us !