EFL Cup

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Very happy with the win tonight. Expected, especially with the team selected but good to see no messing about, just in and out.

Sturridge looked very sharp and I think he should start against Spurs and actually through the middle this time. I'm hoping Can is still available, having him deeper and Henderson further forward is much more effective. 

A bit concerned that so many key players played with Tottenham more rested, but hopefully that has given them more confidence and gives players like Mane a chance to gel.

Also Matip has to be first choice for me, looks a real prospect.

Apparently Citeh should of had a pen but look fairly comfy do Citeh.

Zlatan is having a mare

Mourinho needs to do away with his pride(4-2-3-1) and revert to a 4-3-3. United are getting overran in the middle of the field with just Herrera and Carrick patrolling there. Pogba's best position is the lest central midfielder part of a 3 man midfield. Schneiderlin/Schweinsteiger/Carrick need to play more. Mourinho needs to pick his two best wingers Martial/Lingard/Mkhitaryan/Depay. And Zlatan or Rashford as lone striker. Unfortunately that would mean the little man Mata misses out, but that's life.

Utterly awful game

Great move from United. First bit of quality in the match.

Great save by Wily, but Pogba should've scored

1-0 United. Little man Mata

United look a different team this half.

1-0 United. Mourinho's team talk at half time lit the fire. Pep thinking 'I'd never gone 6 games without a win when I had Lio'...

Hull vs Newcastle - winnable
Liverpool vs Leeds
Man U vs WHU
Arsenal vs Southampton

Bloody good game tonight. A lot of over-egging of fan trouble from the radio on the way home; think the stewarding and policing was pretty good. All you can do with idiots chucking stuff is ban them from cctv images. 

You'd think Upton Park was a church the way they talked about the new place tonight. Much more sensible management of fans today. 

Game itsel was really good. Costa is hilarious to watch, he gets away with loads because he's a kn*b - smaller indiscretions get forgiven almost to keep him happy. Ref missed two clear yellow card offences; so frustrating cos both were for him being an idiot and are things his game does not need. Terry looked half-cut, the worst of a poor back three dealing with a makeshift striker.

Personally think West Ham should be kicked out of the competition after what happened last night.

England's academy? Nah - England's shame!

What happened? I was there after all, what did I miss? What did you see, Fly?

You started going to the same Opticians as Arsene these days Dolph?

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:What happened? I was there after all, what did I miss? What did you see, Fly?

There was crowd trouble, violence, arrests have been made in relation. May have been hard to see from your position in the ground depending on where you were sitting. Surprised you didn't see it on the news after though.

Tend to agree with the comments above. Have to feel that West Ham being expelled from the cup - and having points deducted in the league  if necessary - is the only way these morons might be persuaded to stop. It's unfortunate for the vast majority of fans who don't cause any trouble but this has to be stomped out quickly. It's totally unacceptable.

Sorry, I was being rather trite (and I think I know who have sent Fly here to wind me up!)

Its been so overly-egged its not even funny. Stewards did what they do at basically every derby game like this, stood in a barrier whilst grown men shouting and dancing around. Its been made out like I survived the Somme!

http://www.kumb.com/article.php?id=3831

Funny how the papers are a bastion of honesty when its something you want to believe

I'd take the ground away from them. Make them play their games in the car park of the Tesco or Lidl or whatever their old ground is being turned into.

Nice new ground subsidised by the tax payer and they throw it back in our faces. They should hang their (fake) burberry capped heads in shame.

Guess they might look at reduced capacity for a few games if it doesn't improve. Beyond that probably nothing other than some fines that are negligible

Points deduction would be a decent punishment.
And banning the culprits involved.

Going up Sunday, will probably be some trouble.

Same amount of arrests as the Liverpool/Man United Europa League game in the end. Wild!

its hardly likes its west ham first offence recently. united coach, fighting with the boro fans, trouble in watford game now chelsea. club needs to stamp down on this quickly instead of the chairman's tack which is usually blame someone else (like he did when he blamed united for their coach being trashed)

west ham have always had a history of a fairly large troublesome fan element, with the club throwing cheap season tickets out to get bums on seats seems quite a few are getting through the net

compelling and rich wrote:its hardly likes its west ham first offence recently. united coach, fighting with the boro fans, trouble in watford game now chelsea. club needs to stamp down on this quickly instead of the chairman's tack which is usually blame someone else (like he did when he blamed united for their coach being trashed)

west ham have always had a history of a fairly large troublesome fan element, with the club throwing cheap season tickets out to get bums on seats seems quite a few are getting through the net

Yes my thoughts exactly. Seems to be a recurring theme with West Ham though, a small selection of fans who want to start trouble. Must make things difficult for the mums and dads who just want to take their kids to watch their club, worrying if something might kick off.

It does amuse me, that every excuse in the book is trotted out instead of asking why grown men can't act like grown men when attending a football match.

lfc91 wrote:

compelling and rich wrote:its hardly likes its west ham first offence recently. united coach, fighting with the boro fans, trouble in watford game now chelsea. club needs to stamp down on this quickly instead of the chairman's tack which is usually blame someone else (like he did when he blamed united for their coach being trashed)

west ham have always had a history of a fairly large troublesome fan element, with the club throwing cheap season tickets out to get bums on seats seems quite a few are getting through the net

Yes my thoughts exactly. Seems to be a recurring theme with West Ham though, a small selection of fans who want to start trouble. Must make things difficult for the mums and dads who just want to take their kids to watch their club, worrying if something might kick off.

On a positive note, it does potentially stop these poor children having to watch West Ham

Every cloud Scott...

lfc91 wrote:Every cloud Scott...

Wont be long til Dolphin is here to shoot me down....

3......2.......1......Go!

GSC wrote:It does amuse me, that every excuse in the book is trotted out instead of asking why grown men can't act like grown men when attending a football match.

It's why I stick to watching Rugby nowadays, I tend to think fans are representative of the game itself and football is full of narrowed minded scum and prima donnas.

Im afraid every single club in this country has some idiots supporting it. Sadly for West Ham, a huge amount of idiots having taking a liking to them starting off back when they were throwing stuff at the Man United coach.

Sad thing is, these grown men acting like this are probably fathers.

GSC wrote:It does amuse me, that every excuse in the book is trotted out instead of asking why grown men can't act like grown men when attending a football match.

Which is my major point. All this coverage, barely anyone seems to just say the answer is "arrest people who break the law."

It is of course the job of the Police and the Stewarding to stop this as much as possible and keep people safe, even safe from themselves, but really it is plonkers being plonkers.

I do have less sympathy for that guy on TV moaning about his daughter's safety in the away end - a London derby on a Wednesday night between two sets of fans who have violent history. Whether you should be able to do these things or not, you are taking a risk. I should be able to leave my keys in my car in the city centre, but you'd have little sympathy for me if someone nicked it.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:I do have less sympathy for that guy on TV moaning about his daughter's safety in the away end - a London derby on a Wednesday night between two sets of fans who have violent history. Whether you should be able to do these things or not, you are taking a risk. I should be able to leave my keys in my car in the city centre, but you'd have little sympathy for me if someone nicked it.

Sorry but is that how low your argument is now getting trying to excuse shameful scenes?

Sorry Dolph but that's a disgraceful comment.

A father should be able to take his daughter to a game between 2 premier league sides without the threat of violence without considering any "risk".

Hammersmith harrier wrote:

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:I do have less sympathy for that guy on TV moaning about his daughter's safety in the away end - a London derby on a Wednesday night between two sets of fans who have violent history. Whether you should be able to do these things or not, you are taking a risk. I should be able to leave my keys in my car in the city centre, but you'd have little sympathy for me if someone nicked it.

Sorry but is that how low your argument is now getting trying to excuse shameful scenes?

I'm not trying to excuse it you hare-brained moron, I just think it was a dumb thing to do. He SHOULD be able to do it, but considering the police warnings, the clubs both warning fans and many other safety measures put in place, I'd have thought it was a smart idea not to do it. One of those things where you sigh and say "I shouldn't have to miss this, but..."

GSC wrote:Sorry Dolph but that's a disgraceful comment.

A father should be able to take his daughter to a game between 2 premier league sides without the threat of violence without considering any "risk".

Should. Yes he should. But considering the aggro you'll see at a lot of games with strong rivals, and how that escalates given a whole day to drink, I'd have thought it would be a good option not to go sit in the away end.

Lowering your argument even further with insults.

It's 2016 Dolph. That justification might have sufficed 20 years ago, now these morons are just relics of an appalling era.

Can't condemn the actions of some Russian fans this summer while offering up tripe like families should avoid certain games in this country.

I hope everyone involved gets a life ban and their season tickets go to people who actually want to watch a game of football.

GSC wrote:It's 2016 Dolph. That justification might have sufficed 20 years ago, now these morons are just relics of an appalling era.

Can't condemn the actions of some Russian fans this summer while offering up tripe like families should avoid certain games in this country.

I hope everyone involved gets a life ban and their season tickets go to people who actually want to watch a game of football.

I know, I do, and I would hope anyone chucking stuff got a Police visit/warning at the very least and will get banned. But you can't pretend the problem wasn't there, and he'd have known that, so I don't really sympathise with him. Its sad, but its not a secret.

The majority of the reporting has been well over the top on this, it doesn't even compare to the Russian fans and is a wholly unfair comparison, but I obviously condemn those who were throwing chairs and trying to break through the stewarding. I'd say the majority involved in the aggro were not even looking for violence, let alone the tarring of 40,000 West Ham fans in there who were not involved.

As I've said before, for the most part this was the best stewarding operation they have put in place, and it was nice for the Police to bother to be there this time. But anyone who is really surprised that this many London based fans in close proximity on an evening game was not likely to cause trouble is naive to the extreme.

Or just wants to watch 2 of the better sides in the country play a game of football.

It's improved immeasurably from what it was, but if we want rid of it entirely, we've got to stop making excuses like there was always going to be trouble at certain games. Mindset should be it's not welcome anywhere.

You can want to do many things. But you have to take things into account. Whether we like it or not, there was a risk there that I don't think he assessed.

Thats fine, but hes a parent. Idealism doesn't protect children

And grown men shouldn't put them at risk.

I know they shouldn't, you're not arguing with me on that. This is daft, really daft. Shoulda, woulda, coulda doesn't protect anyone

This has turned out well.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Lowering your argument even further with insults.

That someone should stoop so low.

Disappointing performance and result yesterday. We have really missed Henderson since he's been out injured as we don't have anybody else in the squad who can perform the same role for the team. Glad Coutinho is back and as Klopp said, Southampton will be disappointed they are only taking a 1-0 victory back to Anfield. Confident that it can be turned around. Karius was very good and made some crucial saves which is great for his confidence.

Need to focus on United now, with Mane gone and Henderson only a maybe, it's hard to think what team we should play. I'd probably go for:

That was a truly horrendous performance. Players missing obviously but Southampton really did just outplay us for the most part. Lucky to be 1-0 indeed. Can't remember the last time I watched a match and thought we played well. Maybe Middlesborough (Obviously we beat Everton and City from then but those results were more grinded out than anything). Been a worrying period that maybe highlights our severe lack of depth.

Henderson back in training today so I would through him right back into the line up. Only missed about 2 weeks (If i remember correctly) so fitness won't be an issue as it will be with Matip (who I think will be on the bench).

If you were picking a favorite for Sunday it wouldn't be Liverpool...

Thought Southampton were excellent and should have had 3 or 4. I worry they'll rue that fact at Anfield

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Thought Southampton were excellent and should have had 3 or 4. I worry they'll rue that fact at Anfield

Yeah on another day that is a 3-0 easy. Rare to be happy with a 1-0 but the way that game went 1-0 was a great result!