Chez

Good point. But he talks about improving the football club, so perhaps he means improving the squad rather than suggest the two he has are not up to it so need to be replaced. I don't know. I guess I could be wrong here and he didn't have confidence in them.

I thought they would be OK, just good enough to keep us up mind, none of this Europe bull, and I still do actually.

The supply to him wasn't good to be fair. I have to say surprised we didn't play Lambert for his defensive ability at set pieces.

the manager spent a fair old wedge as Alpine says. Jarvis or Ramirez? Yoshida or Collins? Managers live and die by their signings. Not sure how that phrase works with a transfer committee in place.

Which signings are utter ****?

agree we don't have a great deal of pace, but there were times when we robbed their midfield, got behind it, only then to not drive on to their back four and use the ball quickly to expose their slow defenders. You don't need raw pace to do that, you just need to be positive. Missed trick IMO.

either Adkins didn't want a left back and another centre back, failed to identify one we could get, or chose to spend the money on Rameriz instead. Which do you think it was? IMO Adkins got all the players he wanted but the board just fell short securing the left back they wanted. He had full confidence in Jos and Fonte.

and a keeper. The signings overall were spread across the whole field. 2 keepers 2 defenders defensive midfielder attacking midfielder 2 strikers

I was focusing only on your statement that we made one and only defensive signing when we in fact signed two defenders. I agree he says we need one or two centre backs (depending on whether Seaborne would be able to play again) and we did sign one centre back. He also said we needed a keeper. We signed a keeper. Whoever needed to listen did. I'd of thought the left back recruitment was an easier rod to beat them with.

please do. but don't rewrite history. We signed two defenders. Do you blame Cortese or Adkins for not adding the extra defenders

I certainly want to see us pass teams to death and the folly of lumping it forward was shown yesterday as the West Ham centre backs eat that for breakfast, but when we break down possession in good areas we need to break with pace to take advantage of teams weaknesses. We failed to do that several times yesterday. They had had a slow midfield and slow defenders but we didn't expose it once.

oh I see. When you said "our one defensive signing" I presumed you meant players that are defenders. Silly me.

didn't we sign a defender five days later?

spot on. Massive call by Adkins, shame he was let down by the errors.

you seemed to have forgotten to state who you think should play there in the next game.

Is Shaw still injured?

no idea what you are talking about. Players like Theo, Bale and Chamberlian have brought in well over £20m in the last few years so more than paid for the youth system. Ward-Prowse is going to be worth an absolute fortune.

he has changed the formation in games on several occasions this season so he continues to show flexibility. Te fact is he has moved away from a 4-4-2 because he is worried about the midfield being outnumbered. He's spot on.

yeah maybe, but it perhaps is more of a 4-2-3-1. Either way it's Adkins selecting it and with no influence from Cortese.

How much does it cost us?

Adkins is playing 4-3-3. It's his choice and it's possibly the right choice (certainly we were cut to ribbons by Wigan and Everton when we went the 4-4-2 route). He wants the whole club to play in the same formation to enable a seamless transition from one age group to the next. Makes total sense. How on earth does that equate to him having to play 4-3-3 because his boss told him to? It doesn't. It's ********. Cortese has no say whatsoever on the formation. Cortese has a say on players that come in. He has the final say, because he signs the cheques, but that is the same up and down the country. I'm not a Cortese fan, but to say that Adkins is his puppet is bull.

I'm not sure I rate him. He is too hit and miss. But when he plays well, that should be noted and yesterday he was probably our second best player behind Davis. Despite this I read on here that he was "poor" yesterday. The game is about opinions but I can only conclude that someone with that opinion is blinded by their hatred of him, perhaps because of that pompey goal . Also he wasn't selected ahead of Lambert. He played wide left as part of a five man midfield. Rodriguez was selected ahead of Lambert and I can half see why because he has done quite well and Adkins wants t reward that. He also offers a different set of runs to Lambert which perhaps Adkins was looking for. They have two or three big centre backs so the air route wasn't a good plan (when we went a little longer when Lambert came on it didn't work at all). I'ma massive fan of Lambert's all round game, so I'm not sure I would have made that selection.

aha. Bloody annoying.

True. I'm certainly not suggesting the atmosphere at our place is any better by the way. I just expected more from West Ham even against a no mark side like us. All seater stadiums have killed the atmosphere...

many don't care how he plays. They hate him and refuse to see any of the good things he does.