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claret on my shirt 1:19 Tue May 9
Have the players been putting the effort in?

I read a good piece on OLAS and the guy said " should we feel cheated by the players, the effort against Spurs was brilliant but where was that effort in many of the games we've lost or drawn this season"

Personally i am not sure what to think on this as Spurs is a huge game for us and so the players are likely to put more effort in as i guess us fans do as well.

Your thoughts?

claret on my shirt 8:58 Sun May 14
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

if today is anything to go by then no

normannomates 2:10 Wed May 10
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Let's have it right..as far as standards go regarding professional football clubs go...we are a fucking joke.

Two bob in every department.
From the boardroom to the training ground to the medical staff to the fuckin cunt mascot herbie..who has bottled it against pretty much all his oppos
.

But it's always been this way

Saul Bollox 10:16 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Not a new phenomenon under Bilic. Last season we were losing to all the shit teams and beating all the top teams.

chim chim cha boo 9:26 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Players are delicate little flowers sometimes and their confidence gets shattered quickly.

Other teams can smell blood, target a player with a lack of self-belief, the crowd go quiet and opposition players and supporters take the piss.

Half the supporters are very quick to decide they don't like the stadium (tough shit- we'll be playing there long after most of us are dead), players are shit and it all promotes a negative atmosphere. Sitting amongst a bunch of strangers doesn't help.

How the fuck they didn't put a family stand in is beyond me. I've seen three full-on arguments between blokes swearing and supporters with kids this season (the last one was a bloke in a wheelchair which was as funny as fuck but I digress).

I've got a bloke sitting behind me with three little girls so I'm mindful not to swear but it doesn't always work. It doesn't help that these little girls don't even bother watching the match and one of them is more interested in constantly kicking the back of my seat.

Obviously the odd 'FUCKING HELL HURRY UP YOU FUCKING CUNT' has occasionally popped out but there you go.

I'm sure things will get slightly better next season as the more vocal fans suss the seats where they can stand and sing and swear. I've made the mistake of sitting in seats just next to the posh seats and those fuckers don't make a sound. They are much more likely to look round and see where the noise is coming from- most of them look as miserable as sin.

It can't be good for a player's nerve to play in a quiet stadium but we need to get one thing straight- it's the players job to give the crowd something to get behind, not the fans job to gee-up the players. We (on the whole) are not a crowd that wants a top four finish or a cup every season. We just want a team that tries as hard as it can.

They can say that we were only so animated because it was spurs we were playing but the league cup match at home against chelsea was a cracking atmosphere and the second half against Crystal Palace was almost as good.

If they put the shift in that their wages would suggest they are capable of they'll find us as raucous as any fans in the world, and as Friday saw, the Olympic Stadium CAN be an intimidating place to play football.

Shane_WHUFC 9:21 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Same could be said about the home support.

GreenStreetPlayer 8:48 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

No coincidence that since Collins has returned the performances and effort have improved.

Willtell 8:46 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Yes mike but Ginge doesn't really have much choice on his haircut does he?

mike hunt 8:43 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

ginge is a fucking viking, a real fucking man, no silly fucking haircuts there, should be captain, i bet he could fight anyone in that dressing room, top man, the only ginger i like

GreenStreetPlayer 7:55 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

I believe this "getting used to the stadium" has allowed our players to slack off, gave them a license to underperform.

We turned the arena into a coliseum the other night. We were baying for blood. Anything less than total commitment was unacceptable.

We need this mentality, intimidation and atmosphere for future games.

The players need to win the crowd, then they win their games like gladiators in the coliseum.

Sniper 4:26 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

It all kinda snowballs though doesn't it?

I look back now at games like arsenal at home and you think Arthur had a mare. But actually this is a guy getting used to new teammates in a new league and the issue was the fat lazybfrog in front of him - payet out absolutely no effort in to tracking back or doing anything except trying to win free kicks to take himself. He didn't even celebrate when we scored (probably because his free kick didn't go in)

That was a real pattern at the start of the season. We looked unfit and ill prepared, lots of new players shoe horned in and it then only takes one person not making an effort to expose someone else and because of all the new faces, there's little morale between the players and the heads begin to drop. Like when we crumbled against Watford. One domino sets it all off and the issue with morale and form, much like dominoes, is that it's so simple to knock down but takes time to build back up again.

However I think there's real scope for hope for next season. We've again seen this year that you don't need a brilliant team to hit that top 7 mark - for all the creaming over everton in the media, imagine if lukaku and Barkley got injured - they'd plummet.

What we need to do is identify the best way to use the players we've got and build a team around that. A back three looks most solid and is also a good way to ease Burke and Oxford in if we want to. So stick with it (also solves, in part, the issue around lack of full backs as we have three decent enough wing backs but no out and out full backs) and build from there

If we can gain a bit of momentum and consistency from the start next year and learn from this campaign, it could go slightly more like last season and be a happier top half campaign.

But the Jordan need to invest properly and they'd better bloody have identified players by now

Haz 4:15 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

I shall expect to see the same amount of energy and hunting in packs from our players again on Sunday against the Bin Dippers. If we turn up then there's no reason we can't beat them too. The Yids are a much better team IMO.

Oh and we need to turn up as fans again too. Let's leave our last game at the LS this season on a fucking HIGH. COYFI!!

Charoo 3:42 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

It all started with a shit pre season. They did half a day of training before jumping on an aeroplane.

This year run the cunts for 7-10 days before setting off on whatever bullshit tour is planned.

Sven Roeder 3:12 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Some German tried to snap his leg off.
Missed the start of the season and took time to get going.
Virtually an ever present his entire career so would never have dealt with that before.
I saw Arthur also said he had never had a serious injury til he came to West Ham. Has had two or three injuries this season
Welcome to West Ham!

claret on my shirt 3:12 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

One huge difference does seem to be the Ginger Pele, the guys a warrior and leads by example on the pitch (no i am not saying nobes does not do the same) . You can imagine him in the dressing room pre-game getting the players ready for a war.

the exile 3:04 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

For much of the season the effort has appeared to be pretty poor, but it's hard to know what to put it down to. But it has clearly been much better in the last few games, where we have pressed and closed down teams far more effectively than we were before. Obviously Payet had a destabilising effect early on and questions can be asked about the manager's tactics and selections, but without some kind of inside knowledge it's hard to know what is behind the inconsistency. Take Cresswell for example - he's been a shadow of the player he was last season but seemed to be almost back to his best the other night. What the fuck has been going on with him?

Sven Roeder 2:37 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Some of it is down to variable players and some may be instruction.
We definitely had intensity in closing down on Friday and protected our back 3.
Against Man City at home x 2 the tactic seemed to be to sit off and wait for Silva or someone under no pressure to cut 4 of our players out with one ball.
The intensity and harrying has to be there against everyone.
Part of the reason we need more pace and athleticism and someone who is a goal threat when we do win the ball back.

, 2:25 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Looking back the individual efforts of players have not been so bad but the collective effort had been missing almost since game one. Lately our collective effort has been much more like we expect and need.

We absolutely need to hit the ground running next season, carrying no passengers or players that don't want to be here.

GreenStreetPlayer 2:23 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Should have told the players we are playing Spurs every week.

Do wonder on many occasions how motivated and prepared the players were with a number of very slow starts.
Coupled that Bilic tactics and decision making were also very wrong at times. The Spurs away game an example where our substitutions lost us the game, while the starting eleven were holding their own.

I was very surprised to see the energy and stamina levels on Friday as a few players hadn't played much in the last few games. Where did this come from, though great to see we also had a team of athletes that could compete.

Sniper 2:19 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

I'm with you there scorch - as soon as Carroll starts it's like tenoakyers just thinknall they have to do is ping it to his head from anywhere, yet the reality is if they put in decent crosses he's more likely to win the ball than anyone. It's all very lazy when he starts, but I don't think that's his fault.

El Scorchio 2:12 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

Alex V 2:04

So therefore you set up to pull players out of position with clever movement to create crossing opportunities.

We never really even attempted to do that. Our attacking movement has been pitiful almost all of the season. In fact I don't really even know what our attacking gameplan has been at all in most of the matches I've seen.

Most opposing teams, you can clearly see what they try to do. (Southampton, City and Watford being prime examples) With us, it seems to be 'give it to Lanzini and hope he can beat a few men'.

claret on my shirt 2:09 Tue May 9
Re: Have the players been putting the effort in?

I think at the start of the season we brought in to many jolly foreigners or players not used to the Premier and they tried to address that to some extent in the January window with Shitgras and Fonte two players who are used to the Premier.

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