Down at the Amex Stadium, West Ham’s recent run of fine form that had seen a mini-unbeaten run materialise, came to an abrupt end when a goal from Glenn Murray was enough to give Brighton and Hove Albion all three points.
With the second international break of the season now upon us, it’ll seem an age before our next game is upon us, a tasty looking encounter, at the London Stadium, against Tottenham Hotspur.
Meanwhile, the inquest into what went wrong against Brighton rages on.
Mark Noble, using social media, has given his view as to the main reason the Hammers lost:
“If you don’t score goals you lose games and that’s what happened to us tonight”https://t.co/53DJSt9mUc
— West Ham United (@WestHamUtd) October 6, 2018
But, Mark’s gambit hasn’t been universally well received by the Hammers support who frequent social media:
Sorry mark, while you stated the obvious, what you should have said was “when you don’t graft like your life depends on it for 90mins, you lose games”. You lot need to be told it’s TOT/CFC/MANU every week…we’d probably win the league
— IronsmanJP (@IronsManJP) October 6, 2018
That could be considered a fair point, West Ham seem to raise their game when they go toe-to-toe with the big boys, did the motivation levels dip because it was just Brighton?
Whilst another post, infers that the Hammers lacked speed when it come to attacking:
And if you take an age to move the ball and play a simple pass, the opposition have time to get everyone behind the ball Nobes
— Tony Pezzolesi (@TonyHammer61) October 6, 2018
Exactly, teams are becoming the masters of developing a park-the-bus tactic and frustrating the opposition, apart from us it would seem, with the defending, on Friday night, being questioned:
I have been pointing out for more than 12 months now we are still not a unit when defending we don’t seem to be aware of the runners wide on each flank who delivery crosses into our box which we don’t deal with … we need a bit of Tony Pullis methodology
— Nige (@PebbleMillNige) October 6, 2018
Tony Pullis? Okay, if that’s your wish don’t come running back to me when your bored rigid by defensive mastery but very little attacking intent.
Continuing, the defence continues to receive some flak:
You need to defend properly though. Their goal was down to schoolboy defending once again by masuaku. Embarrassing!! Decent performance otherwise.
— discodave (@DaveWilliams159) October 6, 2018
That old chestnut blame culture surfaces, was it all Masuaku’s fault, or are we just looking for a scapegoat?
But, then again, a defeat wouldn’t be a defeat if a poisoned barb wasn’t aimed at Mark Noble:
If you play noble you struggle to win
— Rob Bragg (@RobBragg1) October 6, 2018
Old habits die hard, don’t they?
Time to regroup, time to put on a united front and prepare to do a job on our old rivals from N17, Tottenham Hotspur.