Nottingham Forest 3 West Ham 0
Having lost at the City Ground two seasons running this always felt like a difficult game. Playing the second half with Wan-Bissaka and Emerson as wing-backs had worked against Man United, so Lopetegui opts for three centre backs with Dinos joining Kilman and Todibo. Soucek has a virus so it's a not-very-creative twin midfield axis of Alvarez and Rodriguez, while Jimmy Summerville finally starts.
Forest look livelier from the start though and after half an hour the breakthrough comes. Moreno isn't tracked as he gets down the left. Dinos does that silly defending with his arms behind his back thing as Moreno crosses for the in-form Chris Wood to head home. The big striker has lost Todibo and Alvarez is also standing there with his arms behind his back. So much for the three centre backs keeping it tight.
The crucial action happens just before the break. West Ham finally come up with a shot on goal as Kilman heads back and Paqueta's decent strike is hooked off the line by Wood. Alvarez has already been booked for a needless shirt-tug and as Forest break, lunges in on Elanga. He appears to play a bit of the ball but is out of control and receives a second yellow. That really was a stupid tackle to make when on a yellow and it's Eddy's second red this season. He's a good player but is becoming a liability.
Loppy brings on Soler and Antonio for his muscle, though once again poor old Summerville is hooked. West Ham improve initially but the game is over when Hudson-Odoi's shot curls through a packed penalty area and above Fabianski's hands, having taken a slight nick off a defender. It's three when Todibo can't clear effectively and Aina puts a screamer into the top corner.
Yates has a goal disallowed for offside and only a couple of brilliant saves from Fabianski keep the score down. Even the fact that Matt and Lisa have gone on a pilgrimage to Hereford Cathedral in a bid to locate the spiritual home of Jarrod Bowen can't save us. Meanwhile in the Nigel derby it's ended Felixstowe 2 Brentwood 1, so at least someone is happy.
After ten games it's starting to develop into a very worrying season. There appears to be a discipline problem at the club with Kudus and Alvarez getting sent off in two of the last three games, there's no date for Fullkrug's return and the three new signings don't seem to have improved the defence. We should at least be giving Forest a game. More of this and Lopetegui is in trouble.
4 comments:
I have lost confidence Lopetegui now, I don't see any system or style of play at all! Saturday was a painful watch the players have no synergy together. His post match interviews are confused and I wonder if the players can understand him unless he speaks in Spanish! Dead man walking slowly to the exit.
It's beginning to look like Pellegrini, though I hope he can turn it around. Loppy doesn't show much passion in interviews as you say, and doesn't seem to be getting his ideas over to the team.
It was a painful game to watch for sure - I was astonished by Alvarez's reckless tackle. Totally unnecessary. I love his passion, but a red so early on was a disaster. Summerville looked like he was bullied about with no space by Aina. Agree with you that all the ideas around attack are simply not getting through...I feel like we've gone back a decade to the age of "will we be 16th and safe? Or 18th and out".
Hi Mark, agree Alvarez is a fine player, hopefully he’ll learn to refine his tackling! I don’t think at this stage we’ll be relegated but Loppy isn’t the man to help us survive and prosper, crazy but I’d take loosing against Everton this Saturday if it got rid of him, however who he is replaced by requires spending which our lot seem to have difficulty with….. plane to fly Amorin from Portugal but not pay the buy out clause says it all now!
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