West Ham (A) - verdict

[VanWolfie]

I agree with all of that. I don’t like the blaming of Atkinson though. We (or I) constantly moan when a ref is too stop start and ruining the flow of the game.
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Speaking as a former referee and assessor, it's not a case of blaming Atkinson but pointing out a fundamental error he committed. Had he played advantage after Boly's foul, then no problem. But the whistle for the free-kick was clear. That stops the game. So in your words, he was at that moment in time a stop start referee. Once a referee has blown for a foul/free-kick, the ball must be stationary before the game continues. Referees often allow play to continue from a spot removed from where the foul was committed but under no circumstances are they allowed to let the game continue if the ball was not stationary. Fornals took the free-kick almost five yards further up the field when the ball was still moving. Atkinson, not having played advantage, was required by the laws to bring the ball back for a proper free-kick.

None of this is to excuse the Wolves players from an abysmal performance but rather to correct the impression that Atkinson did not make a blatant error in refereeing that significant moment in the game. And he's one of the better ones in the current Premier League!

 

[PuntsWolf]

Speaking as a former referee and assessor, it's not a case of blaming Atkinson but pointing out a fundamental error he committed. Had he played advantage after Boly's foul, then no problem. But the whistle for the free-kick was clear. That stops the game. So in your words, he was at that moment in time a stop start referee. Once a referee has blown for a foul/free-kick, the ball must be stationary before the game continues. Referees often allow play to continue from a spot removed from where the foul was committed but under no circumstances are they allowed to let the game continue if the ball was not stationary. Fornals took the free-kick almost five yards further up the field when the ball was still moving. Atkinson, not having played advantage, was required by the laws to bring the ball back for a proper free-kick.

None of this is to excuse the Wolves players from an abysmal performance but rather to correct the impression that Atkinson did not make a blatant error in refereeing that significant moment in the game. And he's one of the better ones in the current Premier League!

But as I said, I don’t think the ball was moving, on a super slo-no it’s not clear cut (are we really asking VAR to look at this!? Of course not).

So if we deem the ball was stationary, then he reffed that situation fine and we all agree.

 

[slink]

Anyway, just to expand on what I typed last night:

https://oscillatingwildly.net/defensive-debrief-west-ham-4-0-wolves/

Interesting read DW. Going through those stills of the game is interesting so here goes...

1 - No idea why Nuno has set us up like this. Look at the state we have got in. Centre backs in a triangle shape miles apart with the full backs pushed on and no midfield cover at all Moutinho and Neves are both 12+ yards from the ball when it's in the centre circle and have 0% chance of ever getting back. It's your deepest midfielder you want making that tackle.

2 and 3 - Shite defending from Boly and i think the ref got it spot on to allow West Ham to play quickly. Personally no going to moan about that. Saiss doesn't react to the free kick quickly enough.

4 and 5 - Saiss doesn't do enough to keep Bowen away from his left foot but Patricio also has his positioning wrong which doesn't happen very often. Bowen can only go one side of the goal and Rui is showing him more of that side. One step to his right and he might save it.

6 and 7 - Don't know what Raul is doing, Neto should have come for the little give and go though or it might have opened up for a shot but runs away.

8 and 9- Don't even know what we're doing again here. Why is Boly at right back and so wide? Why are the defenders so far apart? Where are the midfield? Moutinho and Neves are both at least 18 yards away from the play. We've left Coady to get slaughtered by Antonio.

10,11 and 12 - Defenders have got back in some sort of shape but Saiss doesn't take control of Bowen and Vinagre is too far away from Fornals to close the shot down. No way Neves and Moutinho are getting back as they were too far forward. No reaction to the shot from Coady or Saiss and Bowen has a tap in.

13 and 14 - Poor tracking of the biggest threat on the pitch and Raul not as alert as he usually is at the front post. Patricio no chance at all especially once it took the deflection.

15, 16 ,17 and 18 - KJH takes a step to his left for some reason before the pass goes to Masuaku and then can't get out to him. Saiss never picks up Haller and he has the easy task of standing still and just aiming his header where he wants to.

I mentioned last night that as bad as some players were Nuno was the biggest reason for last night The way he set us up was all wrong and we'll get beat by every team in the league if we leave those sorts of spaces between our players. There's no stills in there of when we had the ball etc but i'd love to see some of those and just to assess what sort of shape we were in and what the plan was. I think the plan against Sheff Utd where when we have the ball it becomes sort of a back 4 could work if they keep compact and narrow but it's going to see our centre backs isolated if we can't get it right like last night. I think we've had problems in both our Premier League seasons and Nuno has found ways around them in both seasons so i think he will do it again but i and everyone else will hope it's sooner rather than later.

 

[Tony Towner]

Is this the Cathro Summer masterplan coming into action again? Last year was Neves holding hands with Coady. This year centre halves too high up the pitch

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Is this the Cathro Summer masterplan coming into action again? Last year was Neves holding hands with Coady. This year centre halves too high up the pitch

I think like Slink says it's the midfield to a point. They're nowhere.

I don't want that pair pushed particularly high up the park as they're never going to score that many goals.

Thing is we didn't do that on the opening day.

 

[Freddeno]

4-0 against fucking west ham united...dont rate them at all..we werent at the races..possession wise we killed them, but just shows how little that matters...more direct is always preferred..Rui saved us also many times..really miss Jonny, and Doc although Semedo did nothing wrong, Doc is better going forward..

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Matt Doherty is shit Fred, I would let that one go.

He would have made no difference yesterday. In fact we might have lost by more.

 

[slink]

I think like Slink says it's the midfield to a point. They're nowhere.

I don't want that pair pushed particularly high up the park as they're never going to score that many goals.

Thing is we didn't do that on the opening day.

Bang on we didn't do that against Sheff Utd. It's absolutely baffling to be honest. AS do heat maps of the games and if you look at Moutinho's for the opening game it's mainly just outside of the D on the edge of our box whereas for yesterday it's some sort of x shape about 10 yards further forward. It just left us so open and easy to counter against. I'm actually struggling to understand how they thought anything else was going to happen but what did.

 

[Freddeno]

Matt Doherty is shit Fred, I would let that one go.

He would have made no difference yesterday. In fact we might have lost by more.

i dont think he is shit going forward..on the contrary, very good...but yeah, wouldnt have made much difference yesterday i guess

 

[Tony Towner]

Some of Semedo's jogging back on transition was Docesque

 

[sycophantia]

Some of Semedo's jogging back on transition was Docesque

Must admit I didn't notice that, I was quite impressed with his forward runs, just that Traore kept ignoring him....hard to be too critical of Semedo, he's just come into the side with little prep and the whole team was cack

 

[Del Woppio]

Aye, quite a few times masuaka made the pair on the right look like proper lazy bastards tbh, waltzing past a couple of times both with and without the ball.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I don't want Adama tracking back, no more than I did Sako. He hasn't got a clue what to do when he gets there. He should be left up off corners too.

Semedo was alright yesterday.

If we're ranking the starting XI from best to worst:

Rui
Neto
Semedo
Neves
Vinagre
Moutinho
Adama
Coady
Boly
Saiss
Raul

 

[Johnny75]

The biggest difference seems to be Donk from the Utd game. Adama can't do the work Donk did in the same position and had zero attacking effect on the game, essentially we were playing with 10 and we can't do that, we don't have the mobility in midfield. Donk would've pressed Rice and Soucek and so long balls easily picked up. Pod would've done the same I think but also had the advantage of dropping short and intelligently laying the ball off to Semedo.

I think Nuno wants both of his CB's to step up and be more pressing, so becoming that deep lying midfielder and forcing that tackle. Problem with last night was that Saiss was reluctant to do it because Vinny is so weak defensively and Boly just isn't in any sort of form. Coady should do more of this IMO and let the two CB's drop deep. But that isn't the way Nuno wants it.

It's a mess right now and plenty of work to do on the training ground.

 

[prawnking]

So while the stats do show we were definitely playing a more possession based game it means nothing if you can’t do anything with it

As if any of us needed convincing of this, Fulham had 65% possession on the way to getting their 3-0 dicking off Villa today

 

[PuntsWolf]

As if any of us needed convincing of this, Fulham had 65% possession on the way to getting their 3-0 dicking off Villa today

Two teams vanity passing on Sunday offering no threat. Can’t wait

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I want us to have more of the ball, I'm not mad keen on how passive we can be at times, particularly against teams who I know we're better than. But not at the expense of results, obviously. I'm not Tony Mowbray.

We actually weren't bad in the first 10-15 minutes. Dominated the ball and they never really had a sniff. Albeit we didn't create anything ourselves. And then the defensive stuff all happened.

I do think it'll come, there have been multiple supposed rude awakenings in the Nuno era (Cardiff home, Sheff Utd away and QPR away were all inside his first three months, for a start) and it gets sorted out. If you're asking me whether I'd stick or twist from where we were post-Sevilla then I'd twist. I think 7th was the limit for that side. This might be different and could go either way, we'll see.

 

[prawnking]

Yeah the thinking behind it is sound and does Nuno credit.

I would hope the final destination isn't just toothless tippy tappy stuff, I love our cavalier counters and sweeping crossfield balls. Hopefully we can eventually have greater possession but stamp our own identity on it

 

[AndyWolves]

I want us to have more of the ball, I'm not mad keen on how passive we can be at times, particularly against teams who I know we're better than. But not at the expense of results, obviously. I'm not Tony Mowbray.

We actually weren't bad in the first 10-15 minutes. Dominated the ball and they never really had a sniff. Albeit we didn't create anything ourselves. And then the defensive stuff all happened.

I do think it'll come, there have been multiple supposed rude awakenings in the Nuno era (Cardiff home, Sheff Utd away and QPR away were all inside his first three months, for a start) and it gets sorted out. If you're asking me whether I'd stick or twist from where we were post-Sevilla then I'd twist. I think 7th was the limit for that side. This might be different and could go either way, we'll see.

I think this is a really good point and for me shows ambition and not being happy with getting 7th. This is evolution not revolution

 

[Alan]

Easy to forget, too, that while we were successful in the Europa early on, our form to start the season in the league last year was pretty dreadful. We were, what, in 19th place after 5 games? And ended up with a (very) outside shot at the top 4.

Nuno's well smart enough to figure this out.