Strongest links to Weakest Links??

Hudd and Livermore. They just arent doing it. Neither have enough bite when we dont have the ball.

 

And when you throw a poor Quinn into the equation we have problems in the middle of the park.

Get Alex Bruce in there!!!

 

I have to agree Chaz.
When they first arrived, they looked like they were world beaters, think that was cos they were surrounded by dross.
but with these new players, like AH, HBA and Ramirez shining, they are starting to get eclipsed.

 

ramirez and ben arfa have played about 15 minutes. how could they have eclipsed thud and livermore?

 

That's exactly why we signed Diame.

 

I agree with this. Livermore has been poor since he signed here. Disappointing.

 

I thought for a bit, Hudd looked a bit more active and combative. He was driving a little more than normal, but as the game went on, we sat deeper and gave them more time on the ball.

 

I thought, huddlestone & livermore looked alot better when ramirez and ben arfa came on, probably both been man marked, which explains why diame was left in space!! Thought quinny and robertson had a very poor game!

 

Aye. He showed them tonight what a Premier League midfielder needs to do.

 

MF has become our weakest link this season. Thudd is not creating anything and is giving the ball away too often and Livermore seems AWOL most of the game. Diame showed them up today. Maybe Meyler needs to be starting with 5 across and Chester back in a back three at Newcastle. Robertson was poor defensively today although making some good runs in attack. Dawson had a very good game though and cut out two crosses that could have been goals.

 

Thought Livermore had his best game of the season... couple of great dribbles, nutmeggs Hammers a couple of times and set up Elmo for the cross for the first goal.

 

Midfield still the weak link. West Ham as evidenced by the possession stats came close to dominating us there.

 

Thought Hudd wasn't bad today, just not getting himself involved enough. Towards the end he started to influence the game a bit more. Did an ace shimmy that left their man for dead. Want to see more of that. Think he needs a selfish streak.

Livermore just seems to be going missing at the moment. You can forget he's on the pitch at times. A good player that's just not at his best currently.

 

We were better in the second half last time out when we didn't play them together. Put them together again and we again lose control. I hope Bruce sees this. Quinn has done well this season, Diame has looked good so far.

 

This clip is going to come in very handy on here.

[video=youtube;WrjwaqZfjIY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY[/video]

 

Part of the problem we seem to suffer from is tempo or lack of it, when we gain possession we seem to stop and wait for the opposition to get back into position, before we make a move.

 

Agree, it was like when Livs and Meyler played the home leg against Lokeren, they just looked uncomfy across a midfield 4. It didn't look entirely comfortable last night playing 4 players who are happiest centrally in the diamond. Relied a lot on Elmo and Robertson for width.

Don't agree with the Robertson bashers either, I think he looked great for 60-70mins than just ran out of steam, having to come from FB to get forward instead of WB.

 

Thudd and Livermore are excellent off-the-ball. Their positioning is really good, but they have both done very little with the ball for a long while.

I'd drop Thudd for Gaston vs Newcastle.

 

I think Huddleston and Livermore were fine last night, but also think you could only play 2 out of Hudd, Livermore and Diame at the same time possibly.

I also thought Robertson had a good game. Couple of little errors, but still much more solid than a few I could mention.