West Ham vs Man Utd Official Match Thread

[h69]

I would bet Cresswell would have pinned it accurately - as obvious as a nose on face

Sorry BD disagree again, noble has been our best penalty taker for ever, he scores it’s a moyes masterstoke, good save , shit result , draw may have been fair…..just very painful. Feel we are a decent striker or two away from being a proper top 4-6 contender. Have spent my life losing to very average Utd teams … today is par for the course.

Totally agree. There are no guarantees from the penalty spot. We as Englishmen are always trying to find one. Had he hit it straight at the keeper then I would understand it but while it was a good height for a keeper, he still had to guess the right way. I credit him with that. Noble does not always hit the ball in the top corner so he would likely have done the same thing had he been on. Last min penalties are difficult regardless. Keeper goes the other way and it works. No more pressure on him than anyone else. A last min pen to draw the game is always going to carry a lot of pressure regardless of when you come on. I dont think that was the reason he missed though.

I think we were outmuscled a bit in midfield today as Rice and Soucek were overpowered at times by Pogba, McTominay and Fred but we held our ground, Zouma was immense and we looked dangerous going forward.

But our crosses were shit. Both Cress and Coufal needed to take a bit more time and pick out classic or Bowen or Benrahma. That cost us a bit as we had a lot of the ball out wide.

As for Man Utd. A collection of top players but not a team. Fernandes is the star of that team, Pogba looks like he does not want to be there and I thought Greenwood had a quieter game than normal though he is a good player.

Ronaldo should have had at least one pen but so should Soucek who needs a rest now. I actually take a lot of positives from that game as I thought we played pretty well and Zouma definitely upgrades our defence. If we can get a striker that is good enough but willing to share the duty with Antonio and coach the full backs to cross a ball properly we will be ok. I actually thought Cresswell was ok defensively today other than being outmuscled by Ronaldo for the goal.

Thought we had a good go though and did not throw the game and my only criticism would be the sub of Yarmolenko where we lost a bit of momentum.

[jameskel]

Thought we did well, the lack of striker is an astonishing piece of mis-management

Agreed re Cresswell, time to give Masuaku a run

Everybody on here, can argue with me until blue in the face, but, the decision to bring a player on, to take a Penalty with his 1st Touch, was fucking staggering. Any player in the pitch, should have been chosen before Noble, regardless of how good he is. Its like playing Football Manager, in real life

[Castiron]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/bl ... point-away
Couldn't have put it better.

[JayK]

Southgate - Euros final this year. Proved it don’t work

Jay I don't see how anyone can compare yesterday to a 19 year old kid in the euro final with the nation's weight on his shoulders to a regular penalty taker with an unbelievable score ratio.
As you said it was a perfect height for De Gea, and 9 out of 10 Nobes would have buried that.
Just wasn't his or our day unfortunately.
You just knew Lingard would score against us.

Billy said “ That's the most stupid decision I've seen any manager make anywhere for a long, long time.” I was merely pointing out it has happened recently. Anyway, if the 19 year old you’re talking about is Saka, he was already on the pitch. I was talking about Rashford and Sancho.
I know it’s just my opinion and people will disagree (which is fine of course) but putting a player on fresh for their 1st kick of a ball to be an important, end of the game penalty is wrong. If players didn’t need the warm up and a few kicks of the ball before joining the field of play they wouldn’t do all that before a game. And I’m talking about the padding, crossing and shooting, not the drills they’re put through.

I also think someone who had more than zero kicks of the ball may have been slightly more confident to get it closer to the corner of the goal maybe.

For what it’s worth, I’m not digging Noble out. He was instructed to do a job. He went on and done it. It didn’t work out. Not a great pen but these things happen to the best of them. Just a shame.

[Clayton]

Jay I don't see how anyone can compare yesterday to a 19 year old kid in the euro final with the nation's weight on his shoulders to a regular penalty taker with an unbelievable score ratio.
As you said it was a perfect height for De Gea, and 9 out of 10 Nobes would have buried that.
Just wasn't his or our day unfortunately.
You just knew Lingard would score against us.

Billy said “ That's the most stupid decision I've seen any manager make anywhere for a long, long time.” I was merely pointing out it has happened recently. Anyway, if the 19 year old you’re talking about is Saka, he was already on the pitch. I was talking about Rashford and Sancho.
I know it’s just my opinion and people will disagree (which is fine of course) but putting a player on fresh for their 1st kick of a ball to be an important, end of the game penalty is wrong. If players didn’t need the warm up and a few kicks of the ball before joining the field of play they wouldn’t do all that before a game. And I’m talking about the padding, crossing and shooting, not the drills they’re put through.

I also think someone who had more than zero kicks of the ball may have been slightly more confident to get it closer to the corner of the goal maybe.

For what it’s worth, I’m not digging Noble out. He was instructed to do a job. He went on and done it. It didn’t work out. Not a great pen but these things happen to the best of them. Just a shame.

I doubt any of us would dig out Noble for missing the penalty , that's down to one person and that is the manager , end of .

[garnett]

Didn't this same debate happen during the Euros, 2 peas from the same pod, I'm being really kind.

[Whiskyman]

Billy said “ That's the most stupid decision I've seen any manager make anywhere for a long, long time.” I was merely pointing out it has happened recently. Anyway, if the 19 year old you’re talking about is Saka, he was already on the pitch. I was talking about Rashford and Sancho.
I know it’s just my opinion and people will disagree (which is fine of course) but putting a player on fresh for their 1st kick of a ball to be an important, end of the game penalty is wrong. If players didn’t need the warm up and a few kicks of the ball before joining the field of play they wouldn’t do all that before a game. And I’m talking about the padding, crossing and shooting, not the drills they’re put through.

I also think someone who had more than zero kicks of the ball may have been slightly more confident to get it closer to the corner of the goal maybe.

For what it’s worth, I’m not digging Noble out. He was instructed to do a job. He went on and done it. It didn’t work out. Not a great pen but these things happen to the best of them. Just a shame.

I doubt any of us would dig out Noble for missing the penalty , that's down to one person and that is the manager , end of .

Stupid if anyone digs out Noble for missing a penalty. I would blast any professional footballer who actually misses the target taking one but if the keeper guesses right he's always in with a shout.. But to absolve Noble from blame completely is dodging the issue. He is a professional and should have known mentally he wasn't switched on to game mode. How could he be ? I would like to feel had I been in that situation I would have told the manager I didn't think it was a smart move to send me on to take it. Lack of bottle ? Not in a million years. Common sense ? Most certainly.

[Clayton]

I doubt any of us would dig out Noble for missing the penalty , that's down to one person and that is the manager , end of .

Stupid if anyone digs out Noble for missing a penalty. I would blast any professional footballer who actually misses the target taking one but if the keeper guesses right he's always in with a shout.. But to absolve Noble from blame completely is dodging the issue. He is a professional and should have known mentally he wasn't switched on to game mode. How could he be ? I would like to feel had I been in that situation I would have told the manager I didn't think it was a smart move to send me on to take it. Lack of bottle ? Not in a million years. Common sense ? Most certainly.

Noble more then likely said just that ( I would like to think so anyway ) , and the gaffer more than likely said get out there anyway .

[Whiskyman]

Stupid if anyone digs out Noble for missing a penalty. I would blast any professional footballer who actually misses the target taking one but if the keeper guesses right he's always in with a shout.. But to absolve Noble from blame completely is dodging the issue. He is a professional and should have known mentally he wasn't switched on to game mode. How could he be ? I would like to feel had I been in that situation I would have told the manager I didn't think it was a smart move to send me on to take it. Lack of bottle ? Not in a million years. Common sense ? Most certainly.

Noble more then likely said just that ( I would like to think so anyway ) , and the gaffer more than likely said get out there anyway .

I doubt that. If Noble had questioned the decision there would probably have, at the very least, have been a bit of a debate by which time Rice, who looked as if he was going to take it initially, would have had the ball on the spot. Moyes obviously has to take the lion's share of criticism for the decision as the buck stops with him, but Noble doesn't get a free hit in my book. Pity it went to VAR and wasn't originally spotted as that would probably have meant insufficient time for Noble to get his training gear off ready for action. The decision was clearly made during the VAR check.

[h69]

I doubt any of us would dig out Noble for missing the penalty , that's down to one person and that is the manager , end of .

Stupid if anyone digs out Noble for missing a penalty. I would blast any professional footballer who actually misses the target taking one but if the keeper guesses right he's always in with a shout.. But to absolve Noble from blame completely is dodging the issue. He is a professional and should have known mentally he wasn't switched on to game mode. How could he be ? I would like to feel had I been in that situation I would have told the manager I didn't think it was a smart move to send me on to take it. Lack of bottle ? Not in a million years. Common sense ? Most certainly.

If you need to be in 'game mode' to take a penalty then you are not a proper professional. Ok, you may risk pulling a muscle but to shoot from 12 yards should not require running up and down the touchline or playing 70 mins of football FFS.

I dont think anyone can say he didnt hit it properly or he cramped up. He just didnt get much height on it. That is often the case with his pens to be honest but the keeper happened to guess right this time and made a decent save. It happens.

As for pressure. There is no more or less pressure on him than had he been on the whole game. Taking a 95gth min pen v Man Utd to get a draw is always pressurised whoever you are.

As Englishmen we are always looking for reasons why we miss pens but the fact is that if there was a guaranteed certain way to go about it then teams would never miss. It happens. I've seen worse pens this season go in.