It brings me absolutely no joy criticising West Ham. I take no pleasure in it in the slightest. On the terraces I always look for a positive, I always want to sing and to support – seriously pointing a critical finger is usually the last place I turn. When I’m let with no other option.

Last night, I began to run out of options. Both with the team and a very (very) small minority of the West Ham support. Particularly a handful of people behind Robert Green’s goal in the second half – your vitriolic and spiteful hatred towards your own players is vile and abhorrent. It literally achieves nothing.

Here are my worrying observations of our tacticts, our team, our confidence and our manager.

Tactics: 4-5-1? At home? Against West Brom?

Hearing the lineup was unusually pleasant. A starting XI including Piquionne, Cole, Dyer, Barrera actually sounds OK. It’s got the makings of an exciting, attacking 4-4-2 with two pacy wingers and one inventive striker on form.

Seeing the lineup however was a completely different matter.

We have to keep it simple, we have to play to our strengths.

We were at home, to West Brom. Not to take anything at all away from the way West Brom have performed so far this year – they’ve been at times a real breath of fresh air. Who goes 3-0 up at the Emirates after all? But they’d lost two on the trot the incentive had to be with us. We were at home and desperate for a result. There was no other option than to take 6 points from this week. Again giving West Brom the respect they deserve, but it’s the sort of game we do have a chance of picking a win up in.

You do not start the game with a formation that says we’re scared of losing and are happy with a point.

It is not acceptable. It’s not the way forward this season.

I understand that the role of Piquionne was to be our right sided midfielder when defending and to push forward to join Cole when we had possession going forward. We’re not Barcelona Avram. We don’t have it within our team who are low on morale, to play a fluid/liquid system where players such as Barrera, Piquionne, Boa Morte & Dyer each have a variety of responsibilities. We have to keep it simple, we have to play to our strengths.

Dyer. Pacy & tricky.
Barrera. Pacy & tricky.
Piquionne. Striker. Our goal threat.

It makes absolutely no logical sense, whatsoever to stick our main goal threat (exlcuding Parker) on the wing & effectively out of the game for large portions.

We have to keep it simple. We have to play to our strengths.

It’s almost like when tickets are cheap they give us a cheap performance (Newcastle, Bolton, West Brom) but when tickets are full price (Spurs) they’re out there to give us our money’s worth (of course that’s not actually what they’re doing, but it does feel like that sometimes).

That’s just how we started the game and played for the first half. The second half was a little different as we saw Dyer pushing forward a lot more to support Cole. It became a lot more attacking and we started to carve out a few more opportunities.

At least, we did for 10-15 minutes.

Move. Move. MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE!

One of the most frustrating things for me last night was a complete lack of movement. Which was quite ironic seeing as the system we had set up required players to be mobile and switched on the whole time.

There were times when the whole team were static. Not pushing forward and sitting in our own half. At home, 1-0 down, to West Brom.

In fact if you look at the moment immediately before Parker’s goal you’ll see that our entire team bar Cole who was roughly on the edge of their box, were way back on the half way line. As great as Parker’s goal was, we were so fortunate that he showed the initiative to burst forward from midfield and actually move. No-one else seemed to want to take that upon themselves. Once again, we relied on Parker.

Parker – different role.

Just as a quick aside, it’s clear that Parker has a very different role this year. And I do like it.

Louis Boa Morte & Herita Illunga

Quite amazingly, these two still keep getting picked.

Herita Illunga has been a significantly worse player, with apparently significantly less interest since he earned a contract with us. He was once again completely missing when we conceded the second goal last night. No matter how much you look at it the left back has to be responsible for not picking up Ibanez. The time he had to put that ball in the back of the net was horrible. But sadly, not unexpected.

Louis Boa Morte has had his fair share of stick over the seasons. He works hard. But is rubbish. Simple as that really. He is wasteful in possession, he can be a liability in a tackle and doesn’t have a role in the side. Is he there to attack or defend? Often, he’ll do the hard stuff but fail on a simple 3 foot pass – or, as we saw last night, pass the ball off the pitch either for a throw or a goal kick. It’s basic basic stuff that is beginning to cost us.

These wasteful, frustrating mistakes, or going AWOL each time a cross comes in from the opposing team’s right flank are beginning to cost us games. Everyone makes mistakes, I get that. But it’s becoming predictable each week who’ll be making them and making them consistently. Has to stop.

Carlton Cole, confidence.

I actually feel for Carlton a little. I’ve often been a critic and it’s fair to say that for a striker he simply does not score enough goals. However the tactics that Avram played last night completely isolated him. He had very little chance to impact the game in a way I reckon he’d like to.

Still, however, we cannot be relying on a striker who needs confidence if he’s going to put in a good shift. We can’t have him moping around the pitch not scoring.

Obinna was on the bench last night and Piq was on the wing. I’m sorry to say it Avram but those two have to be starting ahead of Cole when he’s a ‘feeling sorry for myself’ mood. We literally look toothless with him up front on his own. And I don’t think it’s his fault.

Avram: “From my experience, if we continue like this then the points will come”

It’s fair to say, that if we can’t pick up points off Bolton, Stoke, Wolves, West Brom, Newcastle and maybe even Blackpool, playing this system then it’s hard to see where the three points will come from. It’s not points against Arsenal or United that we want, it’s not even a cup run. It’s points against the teams around us.

I understand that confidence plays a huge part in all of this and confidence is clearly very low. It’s low on the pitch and low on the stands – I’m not sure which breeds the other but us fans are there every week, and are vocal in our support but last night showed that if you start a game negatively then the fans are going to struggle to be as positive as we can be, because we’re not seeing it reciprocated on the pitch.

4-5-1 at home to West Brom. You look at that and you can predict how the game will pan out – it happens each week and for me personally it’s becoming very difficult to get behind and support that system. But I’ll be there on Saturday and I’ll be there at Anfield. I’ll be there at United and by the looks of things, I’ll be there at Scunthorpe next year.

Of course, every new system does need time but for me it’s just not working. It may change, but right now it is not working.

Please do not take this post as knee-jerk or definitive, it’s what I saw last night and I’m worried if this is what the future holds. Thoughtful opinions always welcome

COYI

Update: What Kieron Dyer has said through the Official Site is spot on in my opinion – it was also great to see him play 90mins!