Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Watford make a point against West Ham
West Ham were lucky to come back from Watford with a point after a lacklustre display this morning.
Pardew's 5-3-2 formation left the defending too late and by the time Gabbidon was brought off for Benayoun, the game was at 1-1 and Watford were looking dangerous.
I won't give a full match report here but Pardew took far too long to react to the game. Five at the back just didn't work - that sort of formation needs the wide pair to get forward much more than regular fullbacks and Konchy and Paintsil weren't pushing up nearly enough, leaving the midfield outnumbered and with no width. Watford were pressing heavily for much of the game and our tactics helped them dictate the play. Once we went to the 4-4-2 the game opened up more and I think if we'd done that in the first half the result may have been different. On the other hand, full credit to Watford who came out looking for all three points and they did play very well, and only missed out due to some profligacy up front.
There were some positives to be taken however. Our passing in tight spaces was brilliant at times, and Paintsil really looks sharp.
Player ratings
Carroll 6 - not confident but did a good job. No chance with their goal.
Konchesky 6 - often out of position, but did pretty well and put in a cracking cross for our goal.
Gabbidon 5 - out of sorts again.
Ferdinand 6 - hot and cold, nearly got an OG.
Collins 6 - steady.
Paintsil 7 - defensively sometimes caught out, but otherwise very good - top class distribution.
Reo-Coker 5 - missing.
Mullins 6 - some good passes in the first half but faded and was caught out once or twice.
Bowyer 6 - showed some class at times.
Harewood 5 - not at the races generally, but held the ball up well and is a good man to bring the ball out from defensive set pieces.
Zamora 6 - another goal and a hardworking performance.
Sheringham 6 - the right substitution to make and put some good balls about but it didn't really come off for Teddy today.
Benayoun 6 - got some chances to impress but didn't quite get a feel for the game.
Cole 6 - not much time to do anything.
Dave said...Dunno what game you were watching if you thought Paintsil didn't get forward enough. He put about 10 crosses into the box. Aside from that I completely agree. Wrong formation and stupid tactics of trying to put a team supposedly weaker than us off their game plan by completely changing ours. Only one team benefited from that and it weren't us - well played Watford.
said...I just do not get the 5-3-2 formation when 4-4-2 works for us. Bad decision that backfired and hopefully it won't be used again.
beggers said...I agree, the formation didn't work and we should have changed our shape after half time. Not sure why we persisted? Thought Bowyer was our best today, he was the only one of us, until Teddy and Yossi came on, who could beat a man and make space for himself. Although he went MIA towards the end of the game. All in all we looked well out of sorts, we were not positive enough, were second best to all the loose balls, we defended way to deep in our own half and I lost count on how many times we couldn't pass the ball out of our half and had to pass it back to Carrol!!!! On the bright side we did not play well and we still picked up a point away from home. 4pts from the first 2 games will do me. Now all we need is 3 pts against the Mickeys, should be a doddle!
whubris said...You're right Dave, Paintsil did get up a lot more than Konchy, just still not quite enough for me. His crosses mostly came from deep positions although he did get to the byline a couple of times IIRC.
whubris said...Actually now I think about it Paintsil wasn't given much ball, which is probably why I thought that.
Dave said...Tony and I thought Paintsil got loads of the Ball and was our major outlet (mainly in the first half). We thought the whole system had been designed around giving him as an unknown quantity license to go at them. However the middle of the park i.e. Reo-Coker was very quiet. Don't think Nigel has started his season yet - maybe Anfield will wake him up.
norven munky said...not wanting to beat ya up G :) but yep we did think Paintsil was all class getting forward and with the exception of one ball in (he put the ball behind Bobby? rather than in front otherwise he was clean thru) every delivery was bang on the money.
We actually commented that all we needed to see was some solid defence and he would be the full package cause he was doing everything else bang on.
And as Dave said we were actually wondering if AP went to a wing back formation solely to exploit Paintsil's ability in that area...
Konchy loves getting forward but most times he lacks the spot on cross (yeah obviously he put the ball in for our goal)..however based on the little we have seen so far of Paintsniffer he is the dogs bollocks getting forward.
