| January 24, 2013
12 comments

Allardyce’s Capitulation Began at 6.30pm

I heard a disgruntled Hammer bemoaning his attendance at The Emirates on TalkSport earlier. Having attended the game myself, I had some sympathy with his sentiments.

Team selection last night was, to say the least, curious. Substitutions in the second half were even more so.

Why was there no Diame, no Joe Cole, no Jarvis? With no game at the weekend, we surely weren’t resting them? Without them, we offered little threat and even less width. Cole was isolated up top as usual and our midfield was played through in the second half with embarrassing ease. To concede 4 goals in 9 minutes was nothing short of a humiliation.

Nolan and Noble were, for once, out of sorts. Vaz Te was utterly dreadful and, worse, lazy. If he should have been selected in the first place, which he shouldn’t, he absolutely had to be taken off at half time for arguing on the pitch, petulance towards the bench and failing to make any sort of showing whatsoever. It was a disgraceful performance.

Then, to warm applause from the Arsenal faithful, Diame is put on with the score at 5-1! Even odder, Allardyce thinks that at 5-1 at the Emirates it would be a good idea to give young Dan Potts a run out. He wasn’t to know what was about to happen of course but it was a daft thing to do under the circumstances, surely?

So, the tone is set. This season is a reversal of last. Allardyce seems intent on scraping the points required via the home form, expecting little or nothing away. I think we’ll be ok but the heady days of eulogising over a top 8 finish are surely long gone now? (Not that we at C&B ever did).

Best news for a while? Apparently Diame is happy at the club and wants to stay.

Twitt
Category: Uncategorized |
  • Kevin

    And say so all of us? so where do we go from here, being the laughing stock?

    • http://www.facebook.com/john.simpson.1293 John Simpson

      get rid of sam never wanted him

  • http://twitter.com/Tsaksonakis Stelios J

    Couldn’t agree more, Dave. A bizarre evening wasn’t helped by me watching the game in Crete with an Arsenal supported. Lovely guy, but hardly ideal company last night, as I’m sure he’d agree.

    Here’s hoping we have a Diame in our ranks come midnight next Thursday.

    Come on You Irons!

    SJ

    • essex iron

      bfs needs to leave asap or at the very least when his contract expires….i dont want any manager apart from dicanio….i dont want to hear that he has no experience at top level management …the guy will do better than bfs fact!!! and the fans will be singing his name every game …pee of Big fat Sam….u dont know what your doing

  • Spnece

    Vaz Te was actually beyond a joke last night…The laziest thing ive ever seen in Claret & Blue. With him and the ever worsening Nolan in effect leaving us with a starting 9, what chance is there ??? Leaving Cole and Jarvis warming the bench was a joke…Diame I can understand. When we scrape an performance with guts, power and organisation, I can wear that. When a manager who is so limited in his tactics then fails to instill any passion and , organisation (thats the only thing your famed for Sam) then alarm bells need to be ringing. Last night was a shambles and a humiliation.

  • y8tzee

    last night was an embarisment !!!! this long ball crap has gotta stop getting abit sik of it .

  • Tom

    There is absolutely no excuses for BFS’s team selection, Joe Cole is screaming for games to get his fitness up, DIame has been out for a month, so either rest him properly or play him, not send him on to flog a dead horse. If we were not prepared to compete why not play both Potts and Spence, give Diarra a game and if anyone needed a rest then surely it was Nolan who looks laboured and lost in his application. This makes you ask the question about dressing room harmony, If I were a lamb being sent out for slaughtered I’d have no will to fight, it destroys confidence and team morale. It is a statement to the yop players that we are a weak team and for me the dissent from DIarra and Diame speak volumes of BFS’s managerial skolls.

    BFS has now had 18 months at the helm, whilst he has to be commended on his work off the pitch, he skills at this level are dated and he is now totally out of his depth with the negative approach week in week out. He is at best a good director of football, no longer does he have the knowledge to employ a plan b or counter his counterparts. We are so easy to play against, press us high up the park, isolate our center forward and keep pressing in the knowledge we have no pace or natural width to counter effectively. We have for too long now employed too many round pegs in square holes, why buy Jarvis and play him inside right when he is a gifted left winger wanting to attack his man, get to the byeline and hit his target man, Why continually play O’Brien at LB when you have Matty Taylor and Potts ? there is no method to the managers game plan …

    For me, BFS has cost himself his own job and will never be seen in the Premier league again after this season

  • Val

    I dont know why Sam picked the team he did. Perhaps he wanted to rest his starters for whatever reason. Arsenal was not really a fixture where we were counting on getting points. Fulham on the other hand is. Just for you Big Sam hater, let me remind you of some result under the famed Greenwood and Lyall:

    “For instance the record 2-8 home defeat to Blackburn Rovers the same season we won the FA Cup in the early-mid 1960′s or another home loss 1-5 to Liverpool the season we won the cup winners cup (both defeats under Greenwood). Or perhaps the 6-1 defeats to both Arsenal (75-76) and QPR (77-78) or the 6-0 defeat away to Liverpool (83/84) – all under Lyall.”

    I saw this posted on another site by a member…and oh so right he was. So far Sam has done a great job in rebuilding a team left in shambles. He got us promoted and his objective this year is PL survival (not top 10 or anything of that nature). So far he is on course with that objective. There is not much else we can ask with championship standard players in the squad… the likes of O’brien, Demel, Vaz Te, O’Neill, Taylor etc. should be back-ups at best. Once we are safe we can look towards investing further with more money coming in from TV rights and such. Sam needs time to bring the squad up to PL standards…if and when he fails to deliver with quality players we can talk about changing him…so far he deserves our respect for what he has done.

    • Headmaster1

      I don’t hate him but I do reserve the right to criticise him. It’s one of the functions of a blog. Get over it.

  • Blimey

    Hold on chaps, whilst I agree the team selection leaves me scratching my head, there’s no reason to start panicking or throwing babies out with bathwater…
    The game was all about the 10 minutes when West ham were asleep and Arsenal on fire.Blame BFS sure, but don’t crucify him for losing at the Emirates???

  • West Country Hammer

    I don’t understand some of the selections for this game but calls to get rid of BFS are ridiculous in my opinion. As much as I love DiCanio, he is a PR ticking time bomb and a very risky choice. We need stability for another season or two. We’re mid table on our first season back in the big time – most of us would have taken 17th. It’s BFS’s experience that will keep us on the Prem on what is a very small budget.

    • Headmaster1

      Agreed, WCH